Worst Case Scenario
by water4willows
Summary: The death of a child draws the team into a web of lies, cover-ups and murder. Will the emotional case claim the life of one of their own? Rated T for some strong language and scenes of violence, a smidgen of Tiva but blink and you might miss it. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: I wrote this story almost to its completion months ago. It had a plot that I loved but then I did some research and found that it was completely unfathomable and would never ever work in the real world. I try to at least adhere to some semblance of reality when I write my stories, so the plot point had to go and I was left with nothing but a shell of a story and lots of frustration. So, I reworked it, rewrote most of it, and here it is for your enjoyment.**

**This is un-beta'd so all mistakes are mine. Reviews are much appreciated and, as always, I don't own the characters in this story, but man do I like to make them suffer.**

**This opening chapter came to me while watching the scene where Ducky tells McGee and Abby about Director Shepard. The rest of the story took off from there.**

**Chapter One**

_A honey light filters in from the west facing windows as dusk begins to wane. The bustle of the day has diminished to a hushed hum that is slowly being dissolved into the buzz of the fluorescents. The building has begun its exodus and empties as agency skins are shed in anticipation of the coming promised domesticity. A lone inhabitant of the bullpen remains behind in the gathering quiet. The click of his fingertips across the keyboard punctuates the music of the overhead lights._

_He's been at it for hours, this one thing he knows how to use to distract himself. The only thing that works to help him forget what is happening elsewhere, beyond his control. He long ago abandoned MTAC, his mission being complete, leaving instructions for them to come fetch him should any new information come over the airwaves, and has taken up sanctuary at his desk._

_He lets the quiet of the office envelope him, thoughts concentrated on reports and numbers and figures and finding the patterns in the impossible until night has fallen and the familiar gong of the elevator pulls the agent's eyes to the double doors. It begins as a sliver of light then slowly grows to frame a familiar figure. The disheveled ME steps out, then lets the doors close behind him. It's then McGee notices that this normally well-maintained friend of his is in a state of disarray and is spattered with something dark. Coffee? Mud? Blood? He's certainly seen his share of those substances lately._

_His audible intake of breath is involuntary as their eyes meet and the older man walks with wearied shoulders toward McGee's desk. Anticipation has him on his foot, crutches and all, before the good Doctor can round Ziva's desk. The fractured femur screams at him, but adrenaline quickly quiets the white hot pain._

_"Who?" It's more than just a question and it drops from his lips before he even realizes he's asked it. It asks yet is also tells of the unanswered calls, the hours he's spent waiting for them to return, of the wire strung so tight inside his chest he's amazed he's not vibrating with the strain of keeping it together. He's trying to read the name in Ducky's eyes, a name in the way the old man's shoulder's stoop. Something twinges in his chest when he thinks of the man's own brush with death. It was a day ages ago yet the memories come so easily and so suddenly at times. As if to punctuate the point, the scar at his side throbs unexpectedly._

_"Ducky?" He asks again as he lowers the hand he unconsciously brought up to cover the phantom pain. The wire tightens a fraction and it's taking everything he has not to let it snap him in two._

_"It's Tony." There it is. The pain twisting inside has been named._

_Not Gibbs. Not Abby. Not Ziva and certainly not Timothy McGee. Agents with broken bones are on desk duty, not out in the field backing their teams up. His eyes glance down towards the pristine plaster of the leg cast, the sudden urge to smash the white surface bubbling up inside his guts. Instead his attention is drawn to the sight of his knuckles, as white as the plaster encasing his leg and suddenly Ducky is beside him._

_Was that the doctor calling his name just then?_

_Tim meets the ME's concerned gaze and a hand shoots out to steady him on his foot as the pain in his leg protests loudly. The world tilts and instead of being deposited on the floor, Ducky manages to tip him into his desk chair. Forgotten crutches clatter noisily to the ground and in the stillness of the bullpen, the sound is like a thunderstorm. But to McGee, the noise is lost in the roaring of the blood in his ears. He covers his eyes with shaky hands._

_"Tell me," He says from behind trembling fingers, "what happened."_


	2. Chapter 2

The elevator came to a shuddering stop and announced his arrival with a cheerful ding. The doors opened on an empty floor and Tony DiNozzo smiled at his good fortune. He was the first to arrive and would therefore have a few moments of unhindered solitude to sip his coffee in peace and wonder about the good looking new barista at his newest favorite coffee shop. She'd smiled and flirted with him while preparing his order and in the end he had left with four cups of steaming coffee and one telephone number. Life was good.

Disembarking the elevator he entered the early morning hush of the bullpen but only made it a few steps in before Timothy McGee, NCIS tech whiz and all around clutz, barreled into his path. The two agents collided heavily and DiNozzo was instantly drenched in hot coffee from chest to waist as the four cups he'd so painstakingly acquired that morning crushed into his chest.

"Oh SHIT!" He howled as hot liquid soaked his clothes and ran down his skin, scalding as it went. The file McGee had his nose buried in went flying and rained its contents down around them. The younger agent stood staring with mouth agape for several seconds before he jumped to action.

"Tony! Oh gosh, I am so sorry!" The bumbling agent produced a handkerchief and began ineffectually trying to blot some of the hot coffee from the front of Tony's jacket, the apology on his lips voiced over and over as if on repeat. In shock, Tony dumbly allowed McGee to paw him until the anger set in and he batted the agent's hand away angrily.

"McGee, damn it, this is my favorite suit!" And it was. It was his lucky suit, if the barista's number in his pocket was any proof. Remembering it suddenly, he pulled the sodden napkin from his pocket and noted with increasing fury the running ink and now illegible numbers.

"I'm sorry! I was heading down to see, Abby. She might have a break in..." Tony's eyes narrowed and the look stopped McGee mid-sentence.

"Save it, McClutz!" Tony snapped. He punctuated his annoyance with a flick of his sodden sleeves, showering the younger agent with droplets of coffee that stained McGee's clothes with tiny golden brown spots. What a waste of good coffee.

"I deserved that," McGee gave Tony an apologetic glance then wiped the liquid from his face with his sleeve before stooping to retrieve his coffee soaked report. Tony took some satisfaction in the now sodden and ruined pages that McGee was trying to put back into some semblance of order.

Tony peeled away his damp suit jacket and surveyed the damage to his clothes. His pristine white dress shirt was completely ruined and McGee had the good sense to take a step back when Tony's fists clenched closed in anger.

"Here," he said with an unnatural calm as he fished dripping keys from a sodden pocket and tossed them to Tim. "Black bag in my trunk. And you better hurry Timothy." The use of his full name by the senior agent had McGee back peddling quickly towards the elevator. He punched the down arrow with ferocity in his hurry to escape his extremely pissed off coworker and one final apology and disdainful look was swallowed by the elevator doors. Tony sloshed his way miserably to his desk, grateful that no one was around to see him in such a sad state. He tossed the nearly empty coffee cups at the trash. One cup went wide, catching the rim of the can and spraying the side of his desk with its remaining contents. It spun away then came to rest somewhere beneath his desk, dribbling a trail of coffee in its wake. What had he been saying about life being good?

Tony flopped dejectedly down behind his computer and searched a drawer for his napkin reserve. He blotted as best he could at the now cold coffee which was causing the fabric of his clothes to cling uncomfortably to his skin. He solemnly thanked the heavens for the spare suit he had stashed in his trunk and for Gibbs rule #17: Never go anywhere without a change of clothes.

Luckily it didn't take McGee long to return with the black bag he always kept in the trunk of his mustang. The younger man set it reverently on the desk, his peace offering, and backed away slowly with palms up in the universal sign of surrender. He went to his own desk without a word and Tony's glare followed him the entire way. Kicking the coffee cup that rolled away from under his chair in McGee's direction, he made for the men's room and nearly ran Ziva over.

"Tony! What happened?" She asked, a glitter of amusement in her eyes.

"My esteemed co-worker over there decided it would be a fun to douse me in hot coffee this morning," Tony answered shooting another angry glance in McGee's direction. The younger agent looked away and began typing furiously at his computer. Ziva laughed, the vibrations battering against Tony's already flared nerves, and rounded the distraught agent to head for her desk. Huffing away with all the indignation he could muster, Tony made his way to the men's room to make a hasty costume change. By the time he got back at their section of the floor, Gibbs had arrived and both McGee and Ziva were doing everything in their power to listen in on the animated conversation the elder agent was having on his cell phone. They were failing miserably at being discreet in their eavesdropping. Ziva flicked her eyes in his direction as he approached and gave him a quick once over with a furrowed brow. Tony tossed his backup jacket on the back of his chair and mouthed an annoyed 'What?' to Ziva's scrutiny before walking over to his boss' desk. The archaic flip phone was snapped shut as he approached.

"Grab your gear."

"What've we got, Boss?" Tony asked as the senior agent dug his badge and gun out of his desk drawer.

"Two dead bodies and a missing Marine." Gibbs answered, also looking over Tony's wardrobe change with a critical eye.

"What's the deal with everyone this morning?" He asked exasperated, looking himself over. He realized the source of their scrutiny a second before Gibbs voiced the observation.

"Shirt's on inside out, DiNozzo." It was true, he realized sheepishly. In his frustration and hurry to get back to his desk, he'd put the unfamiliar shirt on inside out. Ziva stifled a laugh as she retrieved her pack from the floor and followed Gibbs toward the elevator, a blushing McGee following in her wake and walking as fast as he could past Tony.

"Thanks again McClutz," he snapped at McGee's retreating figure, reaching the elevator last and throwing his gear to the ground. He pulled the shirt over his shoulders then struggled to pull it right side out again.

"Tony, I said I was sorry," McGee said quietly from the other side of the elevator.

"Apology NOT accepted," Came the muffled reply from within the shirt over Tony's head.

"Tony, I'm sure McGee had no intention of spilling coffee on you this morning." Ziva half laughed, watching as Tony tried to find his way out of the shirt.

"He did it on purpose!" Finally the offending fabric gave way and fell down around his torso but not before he'd managed to pop 2 buttons and elbow Gibbs in the process. The look he earned from the senior agent pulled a quick "Sorry, boss" from his lips.

"I did not." Came McGee's wounded reply from the other side of the elevator.

"There you are Tony. Leave him alone."

"Easy for you to say, Ziva! You didn't have a layer of your derma scalded off this morning!"

"Derma?"

"Skin!"

"You are such a jovial!"

"It's j_uvenile_ and I am not!" Tony grumbled childishly, trying to find a way to hide the popped buttons finally settling on closing the front of his suit jacket over the ruined shirt. The rest of the elevator ride was made in silence. McGee tucked himself as far away from Tony's death stare as he could get and Ziva tried hard to hide her obvious amusement at the entire situation. This was going to be a long day, Tony thought to himself. And he hated it when he was right.

The drive to the crime scene ended at a quaint little bungalow on the outskirts of Quantico. The house was set back a ways from the road with an expansive lawn that was shady and well maintained. Someone had put in a lot of time and effort with the well-manicured landscaping and Tony almost felt sorry for the flowers currently being trampled by the swarm of Military personnel already on scene.

Gibbs pulled the NCIS van up along the curb in front of the house between two lighted police cars and the team piled out and readied the gear. A quick flash of Gibb's badge had them under the crime scene tape and headed for the front door in no time. A self-important looking MP stood guard at the entrance but didn't stop them.

"It's not pretty in there." Was all the man said before stepping aside and allowing the four agents to enter the house. McGee broke off in search of the first responders and Tony, Gibbs and Ziva made their way through the house to the primary scene.

The ranch style house was as suburban inside as out and as finely furnished as a house could be on a military salary. The rooms were open, well lived in and cozy with picture frames filled with smiling faces and a child's artwork adorning every wall and flat surface available. The back bedroom, however, was a stark inversion of the lazy calm of the house and of the street on which it resided.

Tony had been an NCIS agent for a long time, and a cop even longer than that, but nothing ever made scenes like this any easier. The crime had been committed in the bedroom farthest back in the house down a long narrow hallway off the open concept main living area. He knew it was going to be something bad as each person they passed on their way to the back of the bungalow looked solemn and closed off. The room appeared empty when Tony swung the bedroom door fully open and took in the scene.

The walls were painted a pale blue and dotted with the colorful painted figures of animals. The room brought to mind childhood memories of his own overzealous mother and he couldn't help the slight smile that played at the corners of his mouth at her memory. Curtains were drawn away from an eastern facing window and a morning breeze was playing with the edges of the fabric and sending the unmistakable and irony smell of blood in his direction. Tony rounded the child sized bed in the center of the room and found two figures in a pool of crimson.

The woman sat against the wall beside the bed, her head hung to one side with unseeing and milky eyes. Blood coated the delicate fabric of the summary peasant top she wore. In her arms she held the curled and cold figure of a small boy who couldn't have been more than six years old. The moment would have almost seemed tender, a mother holding her son and rocking him gently, if it weren't for the blunt force trauma to the side of the child's small head and the overwhelming smell of blood.

Anger and nausea boiled at once in the pit of Tony's stomach. Ziva issued a small gasp of surprise from behind him when she finally saw and Gibbs held his place in the doorway, unmoving and silent. Tony lifted his camera to his eye, putting lens and flash between himself and the gore, and began to take the first pictures. He felt rather than saw the tension in Ziva as she stood behind him in silence. Finally she cleared her throat and walked away to begin searching the room and Tony decided he didn't mind. He knew that behind that tough Mossad front she put up was just a regular girl and he didn't mind protecting her from this. He could detach himself from the horror of what he was photographing, or try at least.

"Two bodies, Boss. Woman looks to be in her late 20s with trauma to the chest that looks to be stab wounds, possibly gunshot wounds. Male child, six or seven years old, blunt force trauma to the head. I'm going to wait for Ducky to move them." Gibbs nodded and Ducky entered the room seconds later as if hearing Tony's silent, pleading internal call for the ME to appear and give him the go-ahead to get the hell out of the room.

Even the wizened ME was quiet and said little as he slowly pulled the young child away first to examine them both properly. The mother, not yet suffering the full effects of rigor, was unable to keep her hold on the child and Tony almost wanted to tell the ME to leave them where they lie. Palmer, Ducky's bespectacled assistant, handed him tools without the ME having to ask and without comment and also seemed to be just as affected by the scene in the room. It was unusual for the doctor not to have some witty quip or story to relay about a long ago adventure the crime reminded him of but today he was stoic and said little. The bedroom took on the feel of a mortuary, complete with mourners. He left Jimmy and the ME to their trade and went in search of fresh air and other work that would keep him out of that room. He'd had enough. Ziva mercifully stayed behind with Gibbs.

When Tony returned to the back bedroom awhile later, he found Gibbs still standing guard in the doorway.

"Boss?" He asked tentatively from behind, afraid to intrude on the senior agent's thoughts.

"Yeah, DiNozzo?" He didn't turn around.

"McGee talked with the first responders. They found signs of forced entry at the front door. Looks like someone kicked their way in. McGee's trying to get prints." Tony knew scenes like this were just as hard on Gibbs though the senior agent would never dare show it. The murders of his own wife and daughter were raw wounds that never quite closed for Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and something always stirred in Tony's chest when they came across cases like these. It was an itch to protect Gibbs from it all, but Tony knew that if he ever dared to put voice to those internal thoughts or try to do anything about it, it would be seen as an act of betrayal by their gray haired team leader. So, it fell to Tony instead to do everything in his power to help bring the people responsible to justice and pick up any pieces that fell from his boss in the process with silent loyalty. It was his job, and he was happy to do it even if it was often a thankless and cold position to hold. "No sign of our missing Marine."

"Jethro?" Tony reluctantly followed Gibbs into the room at Ducky's call.

"What have you got?"

"My initial observations suggest that they have been dead less than 4 hours. The woman suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and the… other victim's death appears to be the result of blunt force trauma to the head. I'll see if I can find out anything else back at autopsy. Do you know who discovered the bodies?" Tony had the answer to that question.

"Neighbors heard a commotion, called the police."

"Anyone see anything?" Gibbs asked Tony, his eyes never straying from the bodies.

"Non-descript white van taking off around 0700, no plates." Dinozzo answered simply.

"I'm going to get the bodies back to the lab, see if I can find anything further, Jethro." Tony could see the war raging in the two men in the room with him. There was an attempt to remain detached, to process the crime scene with a clear mind and critical eye, but the tiny body now being loaded on the gurney by Jimmy was pulling strong emotions from everyone. There was a hush about crime scenes when children were involved and this was no exception. The personnel swarming the scene were subdued and thoroughly focused on their work as each piece of possible evidence was scrutinized with well-trained eyes. When Ducky wheeled the small body out in its black body bag, the entire house fell silent as they passed and the atmosphere didn't ease until the bodies were loaded in the coroner's wagon, doors shut tight and the tail lights disappeared down the street.

Ziva stood at the end of the driveway watching the van's hasty retreat with arms crossed as Tony came up beside her. He leaned into her side, their arms touching ever so slightly.

"He was just a baby." The Israeli said softly.

Tony sat with her for a moment, watching the road down which Ducky and Palmer had disappeared until she sighed and they both walked back to the crime scene, the impending processing the farthest thing from their minds.


	3. Chapter 3

_If she concentrates hard enough, she can tell the difference between the colors. Red light, blue light, red light, blue light, flashing in a dance so fast its mesmerizing. In the misting rain that swirls in the flood lights, it all appears almost magical. _

_Whatever magic there might be in the universe tonight, she hopes it's enough to save him. _

_It's right that Gibbs should be chosen to ride with him. It's okay that the ambulance doors have shut her out and that the vehicle is pulling away from the scene without her. She's been left in the rain before. It's a familiar scene._

_Scene. Crime Scene. Damn it._

_She looks to her empty hands and the blood attempting to congeal there. Unable to dry with the moisture coming from the sky, the blood gives up, releases and runs in milky pink rivulets down her wrists. There is work for hands here, but it isn't her place anymore. Not this time. She's too close to this and disinterested third parties should be swabbing his blood, pulling the shell casings from brains and looking for the discarded knife. _

_Chain of command. _

_Someone takes her by the elbow and attempts to draw her away for a statement, but all she can do is watch the disappearing colors of the ambulance lights and try not to quake. The paramedics wait until they are a few yards away before engaging the siren. She's surprised they've bothered at all._

_She contemplates her hands again, memory of his blood welling up between her fingers sharp in her mind. Was it enough? Her desperate attempt at keeping his insides in? Had their efforts been enough?_

_"Ziva?" The voice is familiar and Jimmy appears beside her. She's about to voice her irritation, to tell him that she is not within the purview of his job description, but she stops. Others tonight may yet be within his job description. She tries not to let the thought undo her._

_She is Ziva David. Daughter of Eli David. Mossad trained and Mossad strong. She cannot… she will not lose her cool and allow this to upend her carefully constructed steel world. _

_A drip of gathered mist catches the police vehicle lights then drops from the brim of her NCIS hat. She watches it fall and wonders how fast it takes steel to rust._

_"Ziva, Ducky's gone to get Tim. Would you like a ride with me to Bethesda?" They're all first names today._

_"My hands." Is all she can manage. She can feel the Assistant ME's eyes on her and wonders if he can see her fault lines shift. When this is all over and they emerge at the end, she will not be the Ziva David that left the NCIS building this morning. She will be a different species that not even her father would recognize._

_He places a white handkerchief into her open palms, a funeral shroud for the gore. She's almost sorry to ruin the crisp whiteness but nothing stays clean forever and she begins the impossible task of trying to bleach her stains. He gives her a moment of privacy and walks away, seeking permission to pull the Lady Macbeth from her stage. When he returns, the misting has turned to all out rain and her shoulders are damp. She hasn't moved from the spot where the ambulance doors slammed in her face but she knows she cannot stay here forever. Ziva David takes a breath, not caring if the Assistant ME observes the hitch in her chest, and allows him to pull her away and into the warmth and dryness of an unfamiliar car._


	4. Chapter 4

"Go," the order was barked, not spoken and Tony was out of his seat in a flash. McGee had the first of the photos up on the plasma already and a click of the remote brought a Marine's service ID photo to the forefront. It had been a late night for the three agents and if Gibbs mood was any indication, he hadn't fared much better. He'd been absent from the bullpen while the rest of them tracked down information, but Tony knew better than to assume that the elder agent had been idle.

"Private 1st Class Simon Finch, stationed at Quantico after serving 2 months in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Since returning from overseas, he's been working at the Industrial Supply Center on base."

"Why's he back in the states?"

"He was injured in a blast and sent back state side." Tony interjected, reading from his notepad. "His wife and son lived with him in town, Tia and Michael Finch." Photos of a young woman and her son were superimposed over the photos of their corpses and the normal light atmosphere of the bullpen roiled in quiet indignation.

"Tia Finch, 29, is a Reservist and worked at Burrow's elementary school in administration. I spoke with the principle at the school a few minutes ago, and he said she was at work yesterday and did not appear to be under any distress." Ziva added. "She took her son home from the school at 1530 yesterday afternoon and that is the last anyone saw of them."

"Finch failed to report for duty this morning, Boss. I spoke with his CO who confirmed he was in yesterday and also stated that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He left the base at 1600, hasn't been seen since." McGee put in.

"McGee,"

"I'm going to get you everything on Private Finch: cell, financials, the works," McGee answered for his boss, jumping into his desk chair to start right away at his computer screen.

"BOLO?"

"Already done, boss."

"Ziva,"

"I will interview the Private's commanding officer and coworkers at Quantico.

"Tony, you're with me."

"Where we goin' boss?" He asked, a little miffed at missing the opportunity for his own part of the investigation.

"The Private's dad is Navy. We're going to see him." Tony groaned internally and grabbed his gear, ignoring a sympathetic wave from Ziva already on the phone. This would mean they were either about to tell a father that his son was missing and his daughter in-law and grandson were in the NCIS morgue currently being autopsied, or they'd have to deal with the subsequent fallout and an irate and grieving parent. When it was all said and done, he would back on the day and wonder at how many times he had been so very wrong.

Admiral Sydney Finch's office was quiet and clean, borderline OCD clean and judging by his secretary, it wasn't her disorder. Nothing was out of place in the Admiral's perfectly ordered office. He sat behind his desk in a crisp, perfectly tailored suit and eyed the two agents coldly as the clearly terrified receptionist let Gibbs and Tony into the room. Every edge to the man was sharp with a cold and calculating stare that had Tony fighting a sudden urge to wipe his feet before entering. Whatever Tony had been expecting of Admiral Finch, this was far from it. The Admiral did not rise to greet them and there were several awkward moments of silence before the Admiral finally spoke.

"I assume you're here about Simon." Not 'my son', no immediate questions about his daughter-in-law or his grandson. The Admiral's voice was laced with venom and his eyes bore into Tony who shifted unconsciously under the unbridled indignation that smoldered in the man's gaze. Tony Dinozzo had never been one to be easily intimidated, but something in the Admiral's intensity shook him deep.

"For Tia and Michael, too." Gibbs was unaffected by the Admiral, or if he was he hid it completely. The icy stare shifted from Tony to his boss and the room warmed minutely.

"Agent Gibbs, before we go any further here, understand that Simon and I have not had a relationship for the past 10 years. The death of his wife and child is unfortunate but I have nothing that will help you in your investigation." Tony watched Gibbs study the Admiral for a moment, digesting his words and the cold dismissal of his family's tragedy.

"Has anyone tried to contact you regarding a ransom?"

"No."

"Can you think of anything that might help us locate your son?"

"No." The monosyllabic answers to his questions were clearly getting under Gibbs' skin and Tony could feel the tension in the room rise.

"You can't think of anything that might help us find your son? Your son who's missing, may possibly have been abducted or might even dead?" A new tactic, but Tony could see it wasn't going to work. The Admiral cocked his head and studied Gibbs belittlingly.

"I suggest you leave your card with my secretary, Agent Gibbs, and if I think of anything, I'll be sure to give NCIS a call." The matter was closed, the Admiral punctuated that fact by pulling a file from a neat stack at the corner of his desk and opening it before him. A terse 'good afternoon, gentlemen,' followed Tony and Gibbs out of the Admiral's office and back into the hall. Gibbs paused for a moment and Tony turned to see him walking back into the Admiral's office. Tony tentatively followed.

"I have just one more question, Admiral Finch. How does an Admiral's son end up working a loading dock on a Marine base?

"I suggest you take that up with my son, Agent Gibbs. Now good day!" Gibbs, seemingly satisfied with the Admiral's response, left the office with a quick slam of the door. The elder agent and didn't look or say anything until he stopped at the receptionist's desk and pulled out his business card. The older woman took it with shaky hands.

"Please see that the Admiral gets this."

"Is it true?" She asked before the two agents could turn to leave. "About Simon and his family, I mean?"

"I can't comment on an ongoing investigation but we're trying to locate the Admiral's son." Gibbs said gently, picking up on the woman's obvious concern for Finch and his family. "Has he said anything to you about them or received any phone calls?"

"Gloria… sorry, the Admiral's ex-wife, called him about an hour ago in hysterics. All I could get out of her was the news about Tia and Michael but she would only talk the Admiral after that." The woman dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue. "He hasn't gone anywhere or said anything to me since. Oh, I can't believe what's happened. Michael, Tia… they were such a wonderful family… and now Simon is missing."

"We're still trying to track Simon down, if you hear anything else or think of anything at all that might help us find him, please give me a call at that number, I'm agent Gibbs." The woman studied the card and nodded, tucking it into her desk drawer. Before they could exit she stopped them once more.

"He wasn't always like this, you know." Tony stopped mid-stride and turned back to look at the now openly weeping secretary. "I've worked for the Admiral for 15 years and ever since Gloria left him, he's been different. I know you probably don't think so after meeting him, but he really does care about his family."

Gibbs looked as if he was about to thank the woman for the information but he said nothing and Tony followed the senior agent back out into the afternoon sun. It seemed wrong to have such beautiful weather on such a somber day, but Tony was glad of the warm rays attempting to thaw the ice that had formed around his joints from their encounter with the Admiral.

"Nice guy," Tony muttered, half to himself and half to Gibbs. His boss looked over at him but said nothing. He didn't have to. Tony knew how grief affected everyone differently. Where he would work as hard as possible to be obnoxious to help those around him forget a little of what was going on, or use humor to diffuse, his boss was the silent type. Gibbs internalized his grief, turned all the messy bits into tangible assets he used to bring down the monsters around them and make sense of the world they lived in. Of course, there were the occasional events that brought everything up to the surface. Mount Vesuvius eruptions that left the team not quite the way it was before the disaster but sometimes the stronger for it. Gibbs pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called into McGee, relaying the information he and Tony had just acquired and asking McGee to bring the good Admiral's ex-wife in for questioning. Regardless of the cold and unfeeling meeting with Private Finch's father, a Marine was still missing and the murderer of his family was still at large. Gibbs flipped his phone open again and made another quick call to Ziva as they neared the car. She, McGee informed them, was way ahead of them and already tracking the Admiral's ex-wife down. When they arrived back at NCIS McGee was waiting anxiously for them.

"Boss, I turned up something interesting in the Private's file. It looks like Finch was under investigation by the DEA at one time. This is all I was able to find." A click of a button and a heavily redacted report appeared on the plasma, the DEA insignia clearly emblazoned on the page.

"I spoke with a friend in the DEA and found out the investigation was into drugs that were making their way into the States from overseas. He did some digging for me into Finch but didn't come up with much. What he was able to tell me was that the investigation into the Private was quashed when this man stepped in," McGee moved to the next document, a service photo, and Tony felt Gibbs stiffen beside him.

"Admiral Sidney Finch." Tony said, a bit astonished. "So much for not caring about what happens to his son," The man looked as unfriendly in the service photo as he did in person.

"He had his son's name taken out of the investigation and one week later, Finch was wounded and back in the states." McGee finished.

"Well that's quite a coincidence." Tony mused, trying to read any of the writing beneath the redacted DEA document.

"Rule 39, DiNozzo…"

"Yeah, Boss. I know. There is no such thing as coincidence."

"I want his ex-wife in here, now."

They didn't have to wait long. The elevator doors opened ten minutes later and Ziva exited with a woman whose resemblance to the missing Marine was uncanny. Both Private Finch and the photos they'd collected of his son, Michael, looked strikingly like the woman who made her way timidly into the bullpen, shepherded by Ziva David.

"Mrs. Finch, this is Special Agent Gibbs, Dinozzo and McGee." Each of them nodded in the distraught woman's direction as Ziva introduced them. "Mrs. Finch came in after speaking with Ducky." Tony watched as Gibbs visibly morphed from prickly team leader to compassionate care giver and took the woman by the arm to guide her to one of the unused conference rooms with soft words. Without being asked, Tony procured a cup of coffee for the Admiral's wife and followed them into the room. When he entered the comfortable confines, Gibbs had the woman seated already. His boss' subtle gentleness was working its magic on her already.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he was saying as Tony placed the coffee mug in front of Mrs. Finch.

"Thank you. The other agent, Agent David, she said I could see Michael and Tia… confirm it's them…"

"I'll take you down there in a few minutes. In the meantime, can you tell me anything that might help us figure out why your daughter-in-law and your grandson were murdered today?"

"Or where we can find your son?" Tony asked from the corner. The woman's tear red eyes met his for a moment but she went back to addressing Gibbs.

"I got a call from the base this morning. They told me they'd found Michael and his mother after some neighbors called 9-1-1. When I found out," Mrs. Finch paused, trying to control the tears that were threatening and Tony set a box of kleenex gently beside her coffee. She pulled one out with a weak smile and wiped away the moisture at her eyes. "I called my husband after that to see if he'd heard anything else about where Simon might be. He hadn't." Tony did not miss the frustration that punctuated her last statement. He could only imagine what life with the Admiral had been like.

"Do you have any idea where your son might be, Mrs. Finch?"

"Please, call me Gloria, and no, I haven't a clue. I keep wracking my brain for any idea why someone would hurt my beautiful grandson and daughter in law. I can't wrap my head around it, Agent Gibbs. Everyone loved Tia and Michael had every one spellbound since the day he was born. I keep trying to reach Simon on his cell, but it keeps going straight to voice mail." The emotions choked in her throat as she pulled a phone from her purse and placed it down on the table. "Where is my son, Agent Gibbs?"

A knock sounded at the door and one of the newer probationary agents poked his head in before Gibbs could answer. Tony intercepted the kid almost immediately and pushed him bodily from the room and back into the hall. He didn't have the patience for this today. After garnering from the probie that Ziva needed him down in the bullpen, Tony left Gibbs and the Admiral's wife in the conference room and went in search of the Israeli. She was on her phone when he approached her desk.

"Yes, I understand. No, thank you, that will not be necessary, I'll give agent Gibbs the message myself, Sir. Thank you." Ziva angrily slammed the phone receiver back into its cradle in exasperation.

"The nerve of that man!" She shouted, slamming the phone again for good measure.

"Who was that?"

"That," Ziva intoned haughtily, "Was the great and powerful Admiral Sydney Finch. I think he gave me his rank and serial number in there somewhere, too."

"What did he want?" They'd only left the Admiral's office an hour or so ago.

"Apparently he broke wind about some digging we'd done at the DEA and wished to discuss the matter with the Agent in charge. Didn't you and Gibbs see him only this morning?"

"I think you meant 'got', he _got_ wind about some digging McSleuth was doing."

"Whatever. It got back to him and now he's pissed." She sighed and rubbed at her shoulders, trying to loosen the tension there. "How was it going with the Mrs. Admiral?"

"Gibbs is still up there, she was pretty upset when I left and didn't have any idea where we could find her son. That family doesn't appear to be all that functional."

"I can only imagine what that poor woman is going through. To lose a daughter and a grandchild all in one day…" Tony pondered Ziva's thought for a moment, running the idea of losing DiNozzo Sr. through his mind. He and his father had never been what anyone would call close, but they certainly didn't have the nonexistent relationship the Admiral and his son apparently had. "… and then have to go home to that man every night."

"They're divorced."

"What?"

"The Admiral and his wife, they're divorced."

"I see. Well, I can't say I'm not surprised, from what his ex-wife was telling me on the elevator ride up."

"Just be happy you didn't have to meet him in person. Even his receptionist was terrified of him and he almost gave Gibbs' a run for his money."

"Who, Dinozzo?" The senior agent's ability to sneak up on him at the most inopportune times was downright maddening.

"Nobody, Boss. How's Mrs. Finch?"

"Upset."

"Did she have anything to say about the DEA investigation?"

"Nope."

"So we've got nothin'?"

"No, DiNozzo, we've got a missing Marine who was being investigated by the DEA, an Admiral who lied to us today _and_ two dead bodies down in autopsy. I think that's plenty to keep even you busy for at least a little while." He had more to say, but Gibbs' phone cut the diatribe off and Tony made his way back to his desk, tail effectively pulled between his legs, but before he took more than a few steps away, Gibbs was calling him back.

"Abby's got something. Go find out what."

"On it boss," he tried to convey an apology with a look but Gibbs only waved him away angrily as Ziva began telling him about the Admiral's call. At least it wasn't a slap to the head.

Perhaps the dismissal was a blessing in disguise. The closer he got to Abby's lab, the better he started to feel and a smile was even playing at his lips by the time he stepped off the elevator and heard the distinct hammer of death metal emanating from the lab. The only thing that would have made the moment better was a Calf-Pow for the forensic scientist, but he didn't want to risk further Gibbs fury by taking the time to venture out and procure the drink. Better to get the results as soon as possible.

"That was fast! I thought… OH! Tony! It's you!" the raven haired Goth exclaimed in delight.

"Well hey there pretty, lady," he tried in his best John Wayne. The exchange was familiar and comforting and the squeeze she gave him in greeting helped a little of the stress of the day fall away.

"What, no Caf-Pow?" She asked good naturedly with a pout.

"Sorry, Abbs, Gibbs is in one of those moods. The crime scene was a rough one this morning."

"I heard," Abby pranced over to her computer and minimized a program before pulling up the results of a fingerprint search. "McGee was down here earlier. So sad about that family."

"So, what've you got for me?" He really didn't want to rehash the events of the day with someone again, even if that someone was the lovable, happy-go-lucky Abby Sciuto. Thankfully, Abby was too involved in embellishing her reveal to push him for any more details.

"I give you…!" With a flourish of hands she brought up the mug shot of a particularly angry looking individual, "..,this guy! Meet Miguel Martinez, former resident of Arizona State Penitentiary and rumored member of the Knights Templar drug cartel." Someday Tony was going to make the young Goth sit down and explain exactly how she could manage to relate somber news with a smile and bounce in her step.

"A _drug_ cartel?"

"Rumor has it, they're moving in on DC, My cousin Louise works for the city in the sanitation department and she told me that her boss told her that the drug cartels are using US street gangs to increase their distribution networks." She smiled at his look of surprise at her cousin's wealth of information. "True story! And this lucky contestant's fingerprints were all over that house. There was some blood at the crime scene that didn't match any of the Finch's types and I'm running that along with some trace from under Tia Finch's fingernails for DNA. Hopefully she got a piece of her attacker and the DNA will give us a name. My money is on Mr. Martinez here." Tony felt a twinge of pride in the thought that Tia Finch had fought back against her attackers, but that thought led to the entire crime scene playing out in his mind and Tony shuddered internally.

"Great find Abbs. I'll let Gibb's know what we're dealing with." He made to leave but a hand on his arm stopped him.

"Wait! This show's not over yet."

"There's more? Haven't you dazzled me enough already?" He laughed.

"I ran some trace found at the crime scene through Major Mass-Spec and it turned out to be cocaine. There were traces of the stuff everywhere even on the victims."

"McGee found evidence that the DEA had their eye on Private Finch. What did this guy get himself into?"

"Let me know if you figure it out, DiNozzo?" Gibbs had snuck up on him again, this time with Caf-Pow in hand, which he passed to the delighted tech.

"Aww, Gibbs! You shouldn't have!" Abby's unhindered glee brought a half smile to Gibbs' lips.

"I was just down in Autopsy. Ducky said he'd given you some trace to analyze?" Abby ran through the information she'd just given Tony, including a detour into the rather interesting life of her cousin Louise.

"Keep me updated, Abbs." He said a little exasperated when she finished and placed a chaste kiss to her cheek. Then, just as quickly as he had come, Gibbs was gone again.

"He's been doing that to me all day." Tony grumbled after his boss disappeared through the doorway.

"What, kissing you?!" She asked playfully in mock shock pulling a smile from Tony. "Hey, consider yourself lucky, he's been sneaking up on me since the moment I started working here." Tony was about to comment but the reappearance of the omnipresent team leader's head in the doorway stopped him.

"Come on, DiNozzo, you've got a date with our NCIS Mexican drug cartel expert." Tony sighed and said goodbye to Abby who gave him a small, apologetic smile as he dragged himself out of the lab and after Gibbs. He didn't even know NCIS had a cartel expert and he secretly hoped she was hot.

* * *

Author's note: I'm still tweaking chapters so this is it for now. I'd love to hear what you think so far. Please take a few minutes and leave me your thoughts. Its so nerve wracking posting these stories and I feed off encouragement and constructive criticism :)


	5. Chapter 5

_She feels, rather than hears, the approach of footsteps to her sanctuary. The equipment of her lab is humming along happily, engaged in the delicate art of DNA extraction and she finds the noise comforting. She ponders the approaching individual and knows it can't be Gibbs, Tony, or Ziva and its most likely not McGee. She left him a few hours ago upstairs where he was strung so tight she felt the urge to play him. If it were McGee she imagines she'd hear his crutches against the tile but this approach is soft and tentative. Palmer can be soft and tentative. Perhaps he's come for a visit. _

_Whoever it is, they've taken the stairs and that means they needed time to think. And if they needed time to think, then perhaps the visit isn't one she particularly wants. Or maybe its Ducky on one of his late night walks about the building while mulling over one of the more puzzling cadavers on his table. But she soon remembers that he's off along with Jimmy and the rest of them, waiting in the wings to clean up. Or maybe cleaning up already._

_She does not rush the approacher, instead she lets the soft footfalls intertwine with the buzz of the refrigeration units and the sporadic whirl of the Mass Spectrometer and the gentle hum of her PC's hard drive. All the equipment she's surrounded herself with to try and save the world. _

_Tonight people she cares about are off in search of answers based off of evidence she has analyzed and the thought both scares her and makes her proud. Abby Scuito is no fool, she knows how the world works, how hard and cruel it can be, but she's never really let herself think about the situations she's put them in. One bad test could result in the unthinkable and then where would she be? She's saved them with science, exonerated them with science, but what happens if one day she kills them with it? _

_The thought shakes her and suddenly its way to quiet and way too dark in the lab. She goes for the remote to her stereo and to the bank of switches at the door and comes face to face with the stalker of her hallway._

_"Director Vance?" It's been quiet in her lab for so long, her voice sounds foreign out in the open._

_"Ms. Scuito... Abby," He never uses her real name, never ever in a million years does he use her real name. This is bad, this is very very bad. She's killed one of them this time, hasn't she? The science, it killed rather than saved, didn't it? Her Mecca, her pillar, it's about to crumble to dust, right this very minute. Her heart is going to explode because she loves them all so very much. _

___I've killed them. I've killed them. I've killed them. __Can the Director see that, can he hear that in her head, screaming over and over as she starts to shake?_

_"Abby!" His hands are on her shoulders and he pulls her focus back to earth. Director Leon Vance has done what no one else has done before. Director Vance has silenced her, boxed her up within herself and duct-taped every inch of exposed cardboard with just her name._

_"You're needed at Bathesda. It's Tony. Ducky and Tim are waiting for you out front." And all she can do is nod._


	6. Chapter 6

McGee was typing away on his computer when Tony came in early the next morning. He'd spent the better part of his afternoon and evening the day before picking the brain of Agent Andy Bromwell, a 60ish gray haired retired special agent working in the file room part time. The man, it turned out, knew more about the Mexican drug cartels than Tony ever hoped to learn in a lifetime and Bromwell had spent the evening regaling him with stories of their grizzly acts and also his days as an agent. Tony's head was so abuzz with possible connections between their still missing Marine and the Knights Templar (which it turned out was an off-shoot of the La Familia, a cartel he _had_ heard of) that he didn't even realize he'd already reached his desk. It was then he noticed the clock someone had set up near Gibbs' desk, counting out the hours the since their Marine had gone missing. It was an awfully dramatic touch, he thought absently.

"You okay Tony?" It was McGee who asked, and Tony realized he'd been staring at the clock, watching it count up the hours.

"Who put the clock up?"

"Gibbs did, I think," came the reply, but not from McGee. Ziva popped up from her bent position over her filing cabinet bottom drawer after finding whatever it was she was looking for. She smiled warmly at him. "Good morning, Tony."

"Morning Ziva." He answered back with as bright a smile back as he could manage. "Where's the boss?"

"He got in a short while ago and then was called in to see the Director. Tony, are you sure you are alright?" He looked back at her quickly after realizing his gaze had wandered again when his thoughts took him back to the case and the possible reasons the director would want to see Gibbs.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don' worry that pretty little head of yours."

"Pretty little head? That is not one I have heard before."

"He just means let him worry about whatever's really bothering him," McGee said snappily from over at his desk. Tony shot him a frown he wouldn't see and turned back to Ziva.

"I think this case is just getting to me a little."

"I agree. In my time as a Mossad agent, there were very few instances when I had a mission that involved children. But when I did, it was always very difficult. " Tony nodded and looked down at his hands, a movie line running through his thoughts as he studied them, but he left it unvoiced. Tony started to ask Ziva a question but was interrupted by a conversation on the stairs above him. Director Vance and Gibbs were making their way down the stairs from MTAC to the bullpen floor. Ziva pulled her phone to her ear but didn't dial and Tony pretended to boot up his computer while straining to hear the last vestiges of their conversation.

"I don't care who the guy is, Leon, he's impeding a federal investigation and I have every right to look into him. Military Personnel, however high up in the ranks, are not above scrutiny and certainly not above the law."

"I understand that, Jethro." It wasn't good, the director only used Gibbs' first name when he needed to make something stick. "All I'm saying is tread lightly. Admiral Finch has friends in high places."

"Apparently high enough he can get the DEA to throw out an investigation and get the Director of NCIS' panties in a twist with one phone call." It was a low blow and the director stopped walking.

"Agent Gibbs, I suggest you watch your step on this case and perhaps think about trying not to bite the hand that feeds you on this one." The director didn't follow Gibbs past the 2nd tier of the stairs as the senior agent stalked angrily away. Instead, he watched from the landing as his subordinate descended the case and met his team's imploring gazes.

"Tony, what did you learn from Andy... Agent Bromwell?" Conscious of his boss' mood, Tony launched into everything he had learned from the retired agent without his usual embellishment. Gibbs listened with an absent nod here and there as Tony ran through some of the more heinous crimes associated with the Knights Templar.

"So far there are only fingerprints linking a member of the cartel to the Finch house and traces of cocaine found at the scene." Tony finished.

"That's not all!" Came a breathless gasp from behind the group. Abby appeared behind them brandishing a flash drive and a grin. "I thought I'd give you all the news in person!" The goth passed along the drive to McGee who quickly plugged it in to his PC and pulled up the information Abby had stored.

"The DNA found under the mother's fingernails came back to Miguel Martinez. He was there along with another man, Darius Jones." She clicked the remote she'd commandeered without warning from Tony. A mug shot and an impressive rap sheet appeared on the plasma. "This guy's blood was at the scene. He's part of a street gang in DC called the Angels. Apparently the Knights and the Angels are working together. The irony in those names would be worth a laugh if they both weren't sadistic bastards."

"Tia Finch did not go out without a fight." Ziva stated with a fierceness that brought a swell of fondness to Tony's insides. "And she gave us the evidence we needed to catch her attackers.

"Catch being the operative word," piped in McGee. "I've run everything I can think of on Miguel Martinez, boss. After 2011 the guy's a ghost. The DEA thinks he went back to Mexico but I spoke to our friend with the Federales and they haven't heard anything on him in months. I've put a BOLO out on him, but I don't think it's going to be much use if he's been this good at hiding for this long."

"What about this Darius Jones?" Gibbs asked McGee.

"He's a little bit more visible. He's got priors for armed robbery, assault, and prior drug charges Metro never got to stick. I've got a BOLO out on him as well, hopefully someone will pick him up soon." McGee answered.

"Alright. Ziva, you and I are going to go and have a talk with the Admiral about his involvement with the DEA investigation into his son. McGee and Tony, I want you two to go back to the crime scene and tear that house apart. Tear it down if you have to. If this whole thing has something to do with drugs hidden at the Finch property, I want to know about it. Understand?" Tony and McGee nodded in unison. "See if you can get a K9 unit out there to help you."

"Alright, McGoo, I'm driving." Tony stated gleefully as the group broke apart and the agents dispersed with their missions. "No coffee spills or anal retentive Admirals are going to ruin this day for me." McGee looked at him for a second like he was nuts but the shit eating grin Tony flashed him was apparently infectious enough that McGee followed the senior agent into the elevator with a chuckle.

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Tony parked his Mustang on the street a ways down from the house and got out to stretch. The muscles popped and protested, but it felt so good to be out of NCIS and back out into the Virginia spring sun. The house didn't look any different from the last time he'd been there, from the outside anyway. Inside was a different story. The abandoned detritus of an intense investigation littered the place. Every surface had been dusted for prints and any item deemed significant, removed. Tony tried to imagine Simon Finch returning from some fishing trip and finding the place in such a state, maybe even finding the bloodbath in the back bedroom. The image turned dark and he swept it from his mind. They had work to do.

The two agents started their sweep at the back of the house. Both men were reluctant to enter the back bedroom again and left after only a cursory once over that yielded nothing out of the ordinary. Ziva had searched the room thoroughly on their first visit and chances were they weren't overlooking anything. In fact, NCIS had been over the entire house when it was still a crime scene and hadn't found anything. If there were drugs hidden on the property they had gone undiscovered by highly trained agents and were going to be difficult for Tony and McGee to find on their own. Metro had promised a K9 unit to help but Tony was told it could be hours before someone was available to meet them. Tony sent McGee to the backyard to search the perimeter of the property while he crawled along the ground in the kitchen searching for loose floorboards and cursing their lack of progress. McGee had only been out back for 15 minutes before he was yelling for Tony to join him.

The backyard of the house was framed by hedges on either side but the back of the property ended at a dense patch of forest. The green expanse of lawn ended abruptly at the beginning of the tree line and McGee was back a few feet into the trees.

"Tony!" he called again and the older agent picked up his pace and made his way back to where McGee stood. "You're not going to believe this."

McGee had a door in the ground propped open and he was gaping into a shallow smugglers hole. Someone had taken a lot of time and effort to conceal the nice little hiding place and carefully wrapped in plastic and shielded from the elements was a small pile of tightly packed bricks of white powder. Both agents looked up at each other in the same moment, eyes wide in amazement, and Tony went for his cell phone. With the drug's they'd found, he contemplated who to call first but quickly decided Gibbs was the only logical first step. He only hoped his boss would answer. Unfortunately, the call went straight to voicemail.

Shit.

"Gibbs isn't answering."

"Who should we call?" McGee asked. "The DEA?"

"I guess we call..." his thoughts were interrupted by a crashing through the brush to his right. Both McGee and Tony turned and watched as a familiar figure emerged from the cover of the trees and stopped dead when he spotted the two agents hovering over the open door in the ground. Eyes immediately took in their NCIS vests and then, before Tony or McGee could react, Simon Finch was crashing back into the woods the way he'd come. McGee instantly took off into the tree line.

"McGee! Wait!" Tony yelled as the younger agent disappeared into the trees. Did he stay where he was and call for help? Or did he dive in after his partner? Throwing his hands up in frustration, Tony dove in after them.

With gun drawn, he made his way as quickly as possible through the dense trees and the roots that constantly reached out to trip him. He searched for McGee and the fleeing Finch through the trees, but the dense clusters of growth had obscured everything in front of him. He didn't dare risk calling out, Finch could very well know these woods like the back of his hand and double back in ambush. Tony strained his ears, searching for any hint of where McGee of the Private could have gone, but all he could hear was his own blood in his ears, the afternoon breeze loud in the leaves and the chattering of birds in the cover above him. He moved on as best he could, approaching each tree cautiously, expecting an attack at any moment.

He didn't get very much further. The dense greenery ended as abruptly as it had begun and he found himself deposited suddenly into the sunny backyard of another house with still no sign of McGee or Finch. Cursing, he made his way back into the woods and in the direction of the Finch house. They couldn't risk Finch backtracking and getting at the drugs. He moved quickly, but cautiously scanning every direction for McGee, but the younger agent seemed to have disappeared into thin air. He was nearing the trap door again when the report of gunfire shook the still air around him. Taking off in the direction of the noise, he found McGee and Finch a few yards away locked in a violent struggle in a rocky clearing. He scanned the ground for McGee's weapon but didn't see it and knew his own gun would be useless from the vantage point he had. He tucked it into his holster and ran as quickly as he could toward his struggling partner.

McGee was defending himself hard against the Marine who was attacking with all the strength of a man possessed. Finch was huge, nothing like Tony expected from his service photo and he had the upper hand against McGee in both strength and training. The two men were a tangle of flying limbs and shouted words as each fought for the advantage. Tony was making his way over as quickly as possible and McGee had just managed to pull free just as Tony landed a well-placed elbow to Finch's kidney then stumbled off behind a tree. The Marine quickly recovered, however, and tackled an out of breath McGee hard back to the ground, the sickening crack of breaking bone cutting through the din. McGee screamed and the Marine delivered a punch to the side of his face that had the agent crumpling into unconsciousness.

"Get off him!" Tony dove headlong at the Marine, trying to knock him back and away from McGee but Finch deflected the attack. He sent Tony flying and onto a massive outcropping of rock protruding from the forest floor. Tony felt his head connect with the hard stone and he immediately saw stars. Instinct kicked in quickly and he flipped himself over instantly, pulling his gun as he slid down the boulder and onto his butt in the dirt. His wavering vision locked onto the panting form of Finch standing several feet away. The Marine looked at Tony and then back to the gun that Tony was trying with all his might to hold steady in his hand.

"Don't even think about it." Tony could see the Marine was calculating his chances, running his options before taking a tentative step in Tony's direction. The dazed agent squeezed the trigger, not caring where his shot landed and the bullet thudded itself harmlessly into a tree at Finch's left. It was close enough and Finch turned and crashed off back into the woods.

Tony lowered his gun and let the shaking arm fall to his side. He tried to listen for any sign of Finch's return over the pounding in his ears but heard nothing and tried to focus his breathing. The lungful's of air he was trying to pull in were bringing sharp bolts of pain to his side. The thought of dealing with broken ribs royally pissed him off but he'd collided hard with the rock and there was no way he was walking away unscathed. Remembering McGee, Tony scanned the area around himself and found the younger agent laying just about a yard away, still unmoving. He attempted to get to his feet but the world tilted violently and he fell back against the rock clutching his ribs.

"Alright, DiNozzo, get a grip," he said out loud, trying to put the world right. When his breathing had eased again Tony got on his hands and knees and found that crawling seemed to be the only option that didn't cause the world to imitate a rollercoaster. He made his way slowly to McGee and found his friend still unconscious but breathing. His muddled thoughts vaguely recalled Finch possibly braking McGee's leg and after making sure the younger agent's airway was clear and unimpeded, he cut away the fabric of McGee's pant leg with the knife he kept in his belt. The skin was unbroken but a nasty bruise was forming under a knot in the skin. Tony manipulated the leg carefully, trying to feel for a fracture. His ministrations pulled a moan from McGee's lips and the agent groggily awoke.

"Okay, McGee?"

"Wha' happened?" Tony fought back a wave of unease as McGee drunkenly asked the question.

"You decided to go three rounds with a Marine, McLeonard." Tony gently set McGee's leg back down and the younger agent hissed then closed his eyes against the pain.

"Tim, still with me?" McGee looked at him through slatted eyes at the use of his real name and nodded slightly. Tony didn't miss the pinched look to his features and the thin sheen of sweat forming on his brow. They weren't that far from the tree line, Tony could see the Finch home through the branches. He pulled his cell phone out and dialed 9-1-1. When he ended the call, McGee was attempting to sit up. Tony moved to help him, but the world did that annoying titling thing again and he vomited into the grass.

"Tony, you alright?"

"I'm fine, Mom," he tried to make the words as good natured has he could, sensing his friends rising anxiety. Once his stomach settled again he wiped his mouth and helped McGee prop himself against the trunk of a tree.

"You're bleeding." The younger agent observed as Tony checked him over for any other injuries. Tony put a hand to the side of his face that had hit the rock and it came away bloody.

"Nothing to worry about," he said, wiping the blood on his pants nonchalantly.

"Bastard broke my leg." The statement took Tony off guard and he studied the far off look in McGee's eyes with increasing worry. Thankfully, he could hear sirens in the distance.

"McGee, I need to go and watch for the police, show them where you are. Do you think you will be alright if I leave you here alone for a moment?"

"Where's Finch?"

"He's long gone McGee. Scared him off with my Sig." He pulled a DiNozzo smile and managed to coax a return one from McGee. Patting his friend's uninjured leg, Tony finally got to his feet, the world thankfully staying where it should be, and limped off in search of their backup.

A local police officer was the first on the scene followed by the paramedics. Much to his chagrin, Tony was strapped to a backboard and transported in the ambulance along with McGee to the local hospital, the drugs they had discovered left in the capable hands of the local PD. Gibbs was just going to love that. Tony was sure he would let them know just how much when he met up with them at the hospital in a few hours. Gibbs was listed as both of their emergency contacts and would soon be notified of what had happened.

Just as predicted, the curtain of his ER bed was ripped back several hours later and Gibbs stormed in followed by irate nurse yelling at him in Spanish. Tony was perched on the side of his cot, butterfly bandage closing a small gash in the side of his head and ready to go. But for a few bruised ribs and a few nasty bruises he would sport for a week or so, not much damage had been done. The doctors didn't even think he had anything more than a slight concussion. McGee, on the other hand... well, McGee had fared worse.

"Boss, I…" Gibbs walked right up beside Tony, took the agent's chin in hand and maneuvered the side of his head into the light of the overhead florescent. He only let go when he seemed convinced Tony was actually ok. The slight touch would appear to anyone else as gruff and unfriendly but Tony Dinozzo knew what the gesture conveyed. 'I got here as quick as I could,' it said. 'I was so worried about you and I'm glad you're alright. I'm going to kill the bastard who did this to you.' All of it in one slight touch of the face.

"Come on," was all Gibbs finally said and Tony followed his boss out into the hall. He said a few soothing words to the nurse who backed off in the wake of his dripping compliment about her nursing skills and pretty face. She even pointed them toward McGee's room as she blushed. When they found him at last, a harried looking doctor was just leaving his side.

"Hairline fracture to the femur, boss. Doc said if he'd hit me a little harder or if I'd fallen just slightly differently, it'd be worse and I'd need surgery." He motioned toward the cast now encasing his leg up to the thigh.

"They give you something for pain?" Gibbs asked, approaching the injured man cautiously. Tony circled the bed and took a seat on the wide register below the room's lone window. He leaned against the pane letting the coolness of the glass soak into his back and ease the ache there.

"A while ago." McGee answered pathetically and Tony watched his boss survey McGee with the same scrutiny he'd used on Tony only minutes ago. The kid _looked _like he had been in a fight. Bruises blossomed over the right side of his face and were turning a dark shade of mottled green. His lip was spilt and his jaw was bruised and slightly swollen where Finch had hit him. His left wrist was lightly wrapped and he looked about ready to pass out.

"What happened?" Once he appeared convinced McGee would to survive their latest debacle, Gibbs aimed the question at Tony.

"We searched Finch's property and McGee found the drugs hidden in the backyard. I tried to call you but it went to voicemail and that's when Finch showed up."

"Finch was there?"

"Yeah, guess we can cross 'dead' off the list of his possible whereabouts. Anyway, we took off after him in the woods and got separated. When I caught up, McGee had him on the ground and they were fighting. I couldn't get a shot off so I tried to pull him off. That's when he broke McGee's leg and body checked me into a boulder. I managed to pull my gun before he could come at me again, got a shot off but Finch took back off into the woods. I couldn't follow." He left off the part about vomiting gracefully into the dirt. Gibbs frowned and sank down into a chair beside McGee's bed.

"You and Ziva find anything out from the Admiral this time around?" Tony asked, remembering the bullpen discussion earlier in the day.

"He wasn't at his office or at home. I've got Ziva trying to track him down now."

"I can help. Will you get me out of here?" McGee was already trying to get up out of the bed but Gibbs put a firm hand on the younger agent's shoulder.

"Tim, you've got a concussion and you just broke your leg. You need to rest." The words from their boss were low and kind, anything but normal from their gruff team leader. The tone was indicative of just how much the elder agent was worrying about them and Tony knew McGee knew that. The younger agent, however, jutted his chin out in defiance.

"You need me at NCIS, Boss. Tony and Ziva can't work the computers like I can and I want to bring that bastard down!" Angry tears sprang to the corners of McGee's eyes and to lighten the mood, Tony said the first thing that came to mind.

"Who knows, boss" Tony mused, smiling when both McGee and Gibbs looked up at him. "It just might be McGee's leg work that gets us a break in the case." The two pairs of eyes looking at him widened in shock and Tony couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped from his mouth when he realized what he'd just said. He slapped a hand over his mouth but couldn't stem the laughter building in his gut. The byproduct of a stressful day and an equally stressful case.

"To soon?" he choked out from behind his hands and all the tension in the room seemed to break like a dam. Gibbs started shaking with all the mirth the stoic team leader was capable of, Tim's face cracked open in an ear to ear grin and he laughed with Tony until the two agents were on the verge of different kinds of tears. A nurse came in to shush them and insisted that they leave to give McGee some time to rest before being released. Gibbs and Tony said their goodbyes to the younger agent who only promised to rest once Gibbs agreed to talk to the director about letting McGee come in to work his desk. Gibbs let Tony exit the room first and as soon as they were in the hall the palm of Gibbs hand smacked the back of Tony's head. The tap had none of its usual fervor, probably in light of his own slight brain injury.

"What was that for!?" he asked incredulously, knowing full well exactly what it was for.

"_That_," his boss said with a slight smile, "was for your worst joke ever."

* * *

_Fixed some formatting errors and a patch of text that inadvertently got left out somehow. Will try to get the next chapters posted soon. Hope your enjoying it so far! Take a minute to leave me your thoughts. Its easy, I swear!_


	7. Chapter 7

_It's been raining. The air around him is humid and thick and the hum of lights has been replaced by the chirping of tree frogs. At what point there was time for rain to fall, he is unsure, but the sun has disappeared and the pavement is wet. Moisture has beaded over his Taurus, giving the car an ethereal look as it reflects the street lamps and his own tired face back at him. Shock, it would seem, has affected the time and space around him and he has no memory of walking to the car. _

_"I thought it would be easier if we took yours. Mine would be a bit difficult with your crutches." The doctor is looking at him with concern in his elderly eyes._

_"What?"_

_The doctor sighs and walks over, splashing a little as he walks._

_"I need your keys, Timothy." He allows the doctor to take the ring from his hands, the ring he doesn't remember retrieving, and lets the man maneuver him into the car. He knows what this is now, its shock mixed with pain medication. Was it Ducky's doing? Was that the good doctor's objective? Drug him to make him pliable for the drive to Bethesda? Numb his reactions to what's happening, along with the pain in his leg?_

_His leg. _

_He looks down and studies the cast. He wonders where Tony might have chosen to sign it and what words the agent might have put there had Tim McGee not been so high strung about the whole thing. Would it have been obscene? Juvenile? Humorous but with some kind of real sentiment behind it? 'Cause that was the way with Tony Dinozzo. A deep well guarded by a friggin' court jester that would rather wet willy you to death then let you pass and see what's at the bottom of the well. _

_"What did you give me?" The doctor is attempting to buckle him in, but Tim can't bring himself to help._

_"Just your prescription pain pill, dear boy. You've been skimping on them." It's a statement, not a question. An astute observation hidden in a lie. This is 2 pain pills worth of cotton in his brain._

_Shit, he thinks as the tears come unbidden to the corners of his eyes. It's all making him fuzzy when he needs to be sharp. Sharp for what he's got to endure in the coming hours... days or maybe even months. And he will endure it, whatever IT ends up being, for the sake of those he's come to hold most dear._

_The slam of a door jolts him back into the present again and another question pops to the forefront of his brain. A question he might have already received the answer to but has blocked from his memory._

_"Is he alive?" but time has moved forward without him again and he's not even really sure he's voiced the question out loud. The car is in motion now, trees passing by his window and he repeats the question in his mind as each flashes by outside his window. Again and again. Is he alive? Is he alive? Is he alive? This is all his fault. If he had been a better agent he'd have been there backing them up. His co-worker's. His Team. Is he alive, Ducky?_

_"For now." Whether the doctor or the Norco answers, he's not sure._


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: This chapter is rated M for some disturbing imagery._

* * *

"DiNozzo! If you come any closer to me with that thing, I'm going to beat you with my crutches," Tony had been stealthily attempting to inch his desk chair in McGee's direction for the past 5 minutes. All morning he'd tried to talk the younger agent into letting him at least sign the leg cast, but McGee wouldn't budge and it was driving Tony crazy. The cast was calling to him, demanding he cover the blank white expanse in witty repartee.

"Oh, come on McDowner! You're supposed to let your friends sign your cast when you break a bone!" Tony implored with a fake whine, waving the sharpie marker he had at the ready.

"Tony, for the millionth time, I don't want anyone writing anything on my cast," McGee grumbled at him irritably. Tony withdrew the arm wielding the sharpie and rolled himself back behind his desk in defeat. The pain and awkwardness of the broken bone had put McGee in one hell of a mood.

Back behind his desk, Tony looked out over the empty floor and tried to focus his thoughts on the task at hand. Ever since his collision with the rock in the woods behind Private Finch's house, he'd felt somewhat off balance and the annoying feeling wouldn't quit. To top it all off every movement he made angered the slightly bruised ribs at his side no matter how careful he was. At least, he reminded himself, he wasn't as bad off as McGee.

It was late morning in the bull pen and he and McGee were the only ones at their desks. It was unusual for the floor to be completely devoid of life and it was as if the rest of NCIS had picked up on the somber mood of the team and were keeping far away. Ziva still wasn't in yet. She was out helping track down Admiral Finch who was now officially listed as missing. She'd spent her time while McGee and Tony were stuck in the ER trying to track down the Admiral who had last been seen leaving his office the day after Tony and Gibbs had visited him. Where he was now, they could only guess. McGee had been working diligently at the computer with crutches propped in an X behind him trying to find them anything that might lead to finding the missing Private Finch or his father.

The digital clock set up near Gibbs' desk still counted up the hours even though Tony had upgraded Simon Finch's status from MISSING to WANTED on the BOLOs yesterday evening after returning to NCIS from the hospital. The director was none too pleased at the idea of McGee working so soon after breaking a bone and with a concussion, but Gibbs and the young agent's determination had won him over in the end. Even with the small victory, McGee still had been subdued all morning and Tony could tell his leg was bothering him. He hadn't seen him take one pain pill yet and Vance had been very clear. He could sit behind his desk and work the technical magic Ziva and Tony could never hope to master as long as he took it easy, went home when he needed to and took care of himself. As far as Tony could tell, he'd done none of those things and the strain was beginning to show.

Tony's thoughts into how best to approach the issue with his surly coworker where interrupted when the elevator announced Gibbs' return to the floor.

"Tony, grab your gear. They think they might have found Finch."

"Our missing Marine, really?"

"Not Junior, DiNozzo. Senior."

"Oh. Alive?" The shake of the boss' head was slight but clear.

Tony grabbed his pack from the floor beside his desk then caught McGee in the corner of his eye instinctively trying to get up and follow. When his casted leg gave him a stern reminder of the situation, McGee sank back into his chair with a dejected slump to his shoulders. Gibbs walked over and handed the fuming McGee a sheet of paper.

"Call Ziva and have her meet us at that address."

"Is this where they found him?" McGee asked with raised eyebrows. Gibbs nodded.

"Have her meet us there, McGee. Then look into it for me." It was McGee's turn to nod and Tony turned to follow Gibbs toward the elevator. As they waited for the car to appear, Tony glanced back over at McGee and caught the younger agent staring at them with a look of pure anger and frustration. Tony tried to convey understanding in the look he shot back, tried to put into it everything he couldn't say out loud and from across the room. 'I'm frustrated, too' he wanted to scream. And he was. Frustrated with their lack of progress, frustrated that one of their own was now chained to a desk for the foreseeable future, and frustrated that they were, yet again, headed out to another crime scene. When the elevator finally arrived and Tony broke the connection with McGee to step into the elevator, he couldn't help the audible sigh the stress of the week pulled from him. It was not lost on him that Gibbs let the slight show of weakness slide.

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For the 2nd time in as many days, Tony found himself on a quiet suburban street filled with flashing police lights and military vehicles. It took longer than normal for them to reach their destination as traffic around the house they were headed to was backed up for miles. Gibbs maneuvered his Challenger as close to the residence's front lawn as he could manage, flashing his NCIS badge at every MP that tried to stop him or divert him another way. Finally the two agents were able to park and walked over to where they had spotted Ziva. Somehow the Israeli had made it to the crime scene before them and was talking with a uniformed officer. She broke away from him when she saw them approach.

"I was on my way here to follow up on a lead when McGee called me. I drove in to this," She said, waving to the mess of military and civilian police forces taking over the street. "It's this way if you will follow me."

Ziva led them towards the house next door and along a rustic white picket fence that outlined the front lawn and ran adjacent to the sidewalk. The house could only be accessed through a gate at front of the property and the gate's delicate door had been torn from its hinges and the landscaping around it destroyed. The lawn was lush and well maintained and reminded Tony almost immediately of Private Finch's own front yard. The destroyed gate and hedges were out of place on the quite suburban street but what they found on the front porch shattered any semblance of safety or peace the neighborhood once had.

Tony DiNozzo had never been a stickler for protocol but he found himself running through proper crime scene procedure in an effort just to keep his brain focused on other things instead of his stomach's churning threat to expel its contents. In the center of the porch near the front door someone had imbedded a shepherd's hook into the aged wood of the deck. On the hook where a houseplant normally would have hung someone had affixed the severed head of Admiral Sydney Finch. The Admiral's eyes were milky and stared down at his own headless corpse that lay crumpled beneath the hook. In a sick twist, someone had dressed his body in the Admiral's full dress uniform, medals and all. The three agents stood in silence for several seconds, all trying to process the scene before them and no one wanting to make the first move. It was Tony who recovered first and he cleared his throat and passed the duffle bag of equipment he'd brought with to Ziva who took it without comment.

"What did the officer you were talking with have to say?" He asked, trying to break through the layer of shock that had settled in around them all.

"He was telling me where the body was. And what to expect," she explained. She set the duffel bag on the ground beside her and crouched to rummage through what Tony had brought. When she found the camera she knew he preferred, she held it up for him and he bent slightly to take it from her. The movement earned him a sharp hot jolt of pain in the side. The damn ribs were at it again and he tried to recover but couldn't stop the gasp that mutinously found its way out. Gibbs appeared beside him and took the camera from his hands.

"I got this, DiNozzo. Go track down the first responders and find out if there were any witnesses." He wanted to protest, to tell his boss that he was all in and didn't need to be coddled. The argument, however, died on his lips as Gibbs walked away without a second glance at him and started photographing what was left of the Admiral. Tony stood with mouth open, poised to throw his fit but gave up and went in search of more information. By the time he made it back to his truncated team, Ducky and Palmer had arrived and Ziva was struggling with the portable fingerprint scanner. They all could pretty much guess who the headless body belonged to, but Ziva had decided to err on the side of caution and make sure that the limbs did in fact belong to the Admiral. The scanner was getting the best of her.

"Perhaps if you pressed this button, my dear," the elderly ME tried to suggest delicately when Ziva swore at the machine again.

"I know what I'm doing, Ducky!" she snapped more roughly than intended. When the doctor's eyebrows rose she quickly recovered.

"I'm sorry Dr. Mallard, it's just that McGee usually handles this thing and I'm afraid I haven't quite gotten the lift of it." Tony watched Ducky physically bite back the correction begging for release on his tongue.

"He's right, Ziva." Tony interjected, saving the ME. "Try that button." The whirl of the internal processor could be heard as soon as the button was pressed and Ziva had the decency to look apologetic before placing the dead man's finger to the device. Ducky gave Tony a look of amusement before turning to Gibbs.

"Liver temp suggests time of death at roughly 8 hours ago, Jethro. But, as this is not your primary crime scene, that is conjecture at best." Tony heard the ME explain.

"You figure that out just by looking, Duck?"

"No, Jethro," The doctor smiled, seemingly unaffected as he lifted the Admiral's head from its makeshift spike. "My brilliant powers of observation have discovered one interesting and undeniable fact."

"What's that?"

"There's no blood."

"Someone dumped him here, boss." Tony chimed in, seizing the moment to apprise the senior agent of what he had found out from the local police. "One of the neighborhood kids saw a white van pull up in front of the house this morning and three guys get out. The kid didn't get a good look at any of them, they were all wearing hoodies. When the van left he went to check out what they were up to and that's when he found the Admiral here. He's pretty shaken up. His mom called the cops and then the base when she realized whose house it was."

"Was there any sign of her in there?" Gibbs asked.

"No, the cops searched the house. It was tossed pretty good but there was no sign of her. McGee is going to search through the traffic cam footage in the area."

"Gibbs, we have a match. Fingerprints confirm this is the rest of Admiral Finch." Ziva announced, showing them the readout from the machine.

"Or at least the better part." Any other crime scene and it would almost be a joke, one to help them step back away from the carnage, but this case had been wearing on them all and the joke fell flat. Flat on its face in the dirt, and Tony had put it there.

"Ducky, get that body back to NCIS and go over it with everything you've got. You call me the minute you find anything." Ducky nodded without comment and moved away quickly. There was a rising anger growing in Gibbs that they all could feel. Tony half expected the ground to start quaking beneath his feet and instantly regretted the Mount Vesuvius metaphor in his thoughts the day before. Gibbs was pissed. They all were if he looked closely. Tired and pissed and still holding onto hope that they might avenge a small little boy who had no business being in the middle of whatever his father was involved in and for a mother who had died trying to protect him. Ziva's face was stormy, he could still picture the look on McGee's face as they left the bullpen without him only a few hours ago, and Gibbs, though not outwardly showing any signs, was radiating fury and Tony half expected to see sparks. He wondered briefly if his own frustration showed and if his teammates perceived it as he felt it: low and simmering and liable to burst into flames at any moment. He felt the urge to punch something flood his system but a thought popped into his head that stopped him dead.

"Wait, I recognize this..." he muttered absently but loud enough that Gibbs and Ziva turned to him.

"What? What do you recognize, Tony?" Ziva asked walking up beside him.

"I remember... Agent Bromwell... the other night he was talking about recent drug cartel crimes. One of them, linked to the Knights Templar, was severed heads. They delivered 10 severed heads to a rival gang down in Mexico. It was supposed to be a message. This is a message Gibbs." Tony watched as the gears in Gibbs head started churning almost immediately.

"Ziva, get McGee on the phone. Tell him I want everything he's got on the Admiral's Ex-wife. I want to know where she is, dead or alive, by the time I get back to NCIS." Gibbs barked and Ziva quickly fished her phone out of her pocket and moved away from their fuming team leader.

Tony glanced over at Ducky and Palmer struggling to get the headless corpse of the Admiral onto a stretcher and wondered if they really would find Gloria Finch alive. Chances were slim, he thought, if the cartel knew where she lived and had gone to the trouble of leaving the severed head of her ex-husband speared through the planks of her own front porch. Yet the police hadn't found any evidence of her when they first arrived at the crime scene and there was several days worth of mail in the mailbox. If she was alive he could only hope they would find her before the Knights Templar did.

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Interrogation Room One, 1300

Subject: Former Mrs. Admiral Sydney Finch, Gloria

Rank: Civilian, Person of Interest

Tony opened the door to the small room with clipboard in hand and switched on the weak overhead light. A tech made his way in silently behind him and prepared the various computers and equipment they would need for what was coming next. Tony focused on the nervous and shaking woman sitting in the chair behind the table beyond the glass, oblivious that she was being observed. Gloria Finch was in constant motion, continuously dabbing at the tears that were tracking down her cheeks with a handkerchief or shifting her position in the uncomfortable chair. The elderly woman looked two seconds away from cracking and Tony could only hope that when she did, they would get some of the answers they were so desperately looking for.

Once they'd arrived back at NCIS with news of the Admiral's headless corpse turning up at the home of his former wife, everything had ramped up to top gear. McGee had gone above and beyond anything any of them could have expected and by the time Gibbs stormed back into the bullpen with Tony and Ziva in his wake, Gloria Finch was already on site and on her way down to interrogation.

They were certain now that the Knights Templar had been involved in the murders of the Admiral and the Private's family but there were still so many questions left unanswered. How had Simon Finch gotten involved with the dangerous drug cartel? Why was his family murdered and where was he now? The lack of answers was maddening and their only hope now sat behind the glass, barely holding it together.

The interrogation room was a far cry from the comfortable conference room that Mrs. Finch had been privy to only days before and Tony watched her continue to quake in the confines of the small room, simmering in her own fear and uncertainty. His observations were interrupted as the tech signaled to him that everything was ready, and Gibbs, as if reading Tony's mind, stepped into the interrogation room. He was armed and ready with the ammunition McGee had so painstakingly prepared and Tony could only pray it would be enough. Tony watched the scene unfold.

Gibbs took the seat opposite Mrs. Finch but did not greet the now openly weeping woman. He busied himself instead with the file in front of him until the woman was squirming uncomfortably. After an impossibly long silence, Gibbs finally spoke.

"Your husband was found dead this morning, Mrs. Finch."

"They told me," she replied simply, looking anywhere but back at Gibbs. "And it's 'ex' husband."

"Sorry," but there was no real sympathy behind the word.

"There have been an awful lot of dead bodies around you lately, Mrs. Finch." The woman's eyes snapped up immediately and met Gibbs' stare, but she quickly looked away under the intenseness Tony knew she would see there. To add to his point, Gibbs pulled a stack of crime scene photos from his file and placed them before the Admiral's wife one by one. She began to sob, her shoulders shaking with enormity of it all.

"Agent Gibbs, please…" she was pleading with him but Tony knew Gibbs was in interrogation mode and no compassion would be forthcoming.

"This," he said, placing the last and most gruesome of the photos in front of her, "Is what your son's extracurricular activities have caused. He did this."

"No," she said wetly.

"Where is your son, Mrs. Finch?"

"I already told you, I don't know!" Gibbs slammed a hand down on the table heavily startling the woman and sending several of the photos flying.

"Your grandson and daughter-in-law are dead. Your husband is dead. WHY THE HELL ARE YOU PROTECTING HIM?" Gibbs was up out of his seat and in the woman's face, practically screaming. Tony flinched himself, watching his boss court the edge, but then back off and throw himself back into his chair.

"I know you've been talking to him." Tony could tell that it was taking everything in the woman at that moment not to fall apart. She'd stopped crying but her shoulders continued to shake in thinly veiled hysterics.

"I haven't! You've got to believe me."

"Your son broke my agent's leg, did you know that?" She blinked at him stupidly, his question coming out of nowhere, and didn't answer. "I think he took it kind of personally because when I got back to my office this afternoon he'd been pretty busy," Gibbs continued. "Turns out you've been pretty busy, too. You went out and purchased two disposable phones the other day after you left NCIS."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"You used your credit card. My agents tracked down the purchase and then the store gave us the information." Tony wondered if the woman ever watched TV. It was the oldest trick in the book, the good ol' reliable paper trail.

"If you had used cash instead of your card, I might have actually believed you when you told me you haven't spoken with him.

"You're bluffing." The accusation almost made Tony laugh.

"I've got proof Mrs. Finch. Tell me where Simon is or I throw you in jail for impeding a federal investigation and aiding and abetting a fugitive."

"Do you have children, Agent Gibbs?" The woman asked suddenly, fresh tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Tony instantly drew in a breath at the question which earned him a sidelong glance from the tech working silently in the corner.

"Oh no, lady, you do not get to play that card with me." Gibbs visibly prickle and Tony wanted to yell through the glass to warn the woman to tread carefully and choose her next words wisely. Didn't she realize who she was in that room with? Couldn't she sense the snake coiled and ready to strike at her from the grass if she came to close? "If you had children you'd understand. When they come to you for help, when they look into your eyes and beg you for your protection, you move heaven and earth to keep them safe."

"Even if it cost 3 innocent people their lives?" Gibbs asked, unaffected by her speech.

"That wasn't Simon, it was that horrible man, Miguel!"

"Then explain it to me, Mrs. Finch. Help me understand."

"My son was a good boy, Agent Gibbs," She began and Tony could see the internal struggle she was having to keep her emotions and tears under some semblance of control. "He was a very good boy but his father was never an easy man to live with and Simon acted out a bit in high school. He had a best friend, Darius Jones, who was a member of a local gang called the Angels. Darius was trying to get my son to join but when my husband realized what was going on he shipped Simon off to military school before he could get into any more trouble. I never heard him talk of Darius Jones again until he got back from Afghanistan. He'd met a young man over there who turned out to be Darius' cousin who remembered Simon from all those years ago. He got my son embroiled in some scheme to smuggle drugs out of Afghanistan and into the US. The DEA started investigating and my husband pulled some strings to get Simon's name out of it and get him a transfer home."

"Your husband told me he hadn't had a relationship with Simon in 10 years. If that was the case why did he step in to help your son?" Gibbs asked the question that had also sprung to Tony's mind and he shivered at the memory of his meeting with the Admiral.

"Helping my son had nothing to do with it, Agent Gibbs. My ex-husband was a vain and silly man. Anything and everything that might jeopardize his position or reputation had to be quashed. My son was not excluded from that. He heard about the investigation, thought having a son under investigation would hurt his reputation and got Simon shipped back home that same week."

"His record said he was injured in combat and sent back stateside." Gibbs pointed out.

"I don't know what my husband did to get Simon back home, Agent Gibbs, and I didn't ask. All I cared about was having Simon home and safe. He was happy to be back, too. Even when his father pulled a few strings to make sure his career in the Marines never went anywhere and he was passed up for promotion as punishment. Tia and Michael meant everything to Simon and he didn't care what his father did as long as he could be near his family. He got a job on base and went back to his normal life. Everything was going wonderfully until Darius showed up again. His cousin had told him what happened in Afghanistan and Darius used Tia and Michael to get Simon to do what they wanted."

"What did they want him to do?" Gloria Finch paused in her story and studied Gibbs for a moment. Tony held his breath and hoped that the question hadn't spooked her into clamming up. She continued, but carefully.

"Simon worked on the loading docks at a facility on base. They processed shipments from all over the United States. His job was to intercept crates on certain shipments that came from a base in California and deliver the crates to a white van that showed up at the docks once a week. They threatened my son, Agent Gibbs. What else was he supposed to do? They told him that if he didn't help them Tia and Michael would never be safe and they would kill everyone that Simon held most dear. So, he did the work and they left him alone for the most part but the shipments started becoming more than Simon could handle and his boss at work was starting to ask questions. He tried to talk to Darius about how things couldn't keep going the way they were. That someone was going to start noticing the paperwork he was fudging and the strings he was having to pull to get the crates out unnoticed but Darius wouldn't listen so Simon started gathering evidence to take to the authorities. He went through one of the shipments and found out they were smuggling drugs and sometimes weapons from California. He started stealing parts of the shipments here and there and began recording the conversations that he would have with Darius or the guys that would show up with the white van. He got as much information as he could on everyone he'd have contact with until he heard the name of who was really behind it all. Some group called The Knights Templar. Have you heard of them, Agent Gibbs?"

"I'm familiar with them."

"Then you know what they're capable of, as evidenced by my late great ex-husband. Simon did his research and as soon as he discovered who he was dealing with, he knew he had to get out and get his family safe. He went after more evidence, convinced that he needed more so that the feds would think him a worthy asset and offer him and his family witness protection if they came forward. So he set up a meeting with Miguel Martinez from the Knights to see if he could record the man admitting to the drug smuggling. As far as my son could figure, Miguel Martinez was the brains behind everything and the one Darius made contact with for the Knights Templar but before he could have the meeting with Martinez, one of the men in Darius' gang found that Simon had taken some of the drugs from the last pickup. He'd taken too much and they noticed. May God forgive my son but they noticed and by the next morning Tia and Michael had been murdered and my Simon was on the run." She finished the story slightly out of breath and bent with the weight of it all, her eyes red from crying and wrung dry. Tony felt as tired as the woman now looked.

"Why didn't you tell us any of this when you came here to make arrangements for Tia and Michael with my Medical Examiner?"

"I didn't know any of it then, Agent Gibbs. I swear!" She cried out, hearing the disbelief in Gibbs' voice.

"Why should I believe you? You've been lying to me and my team since the day we brought you in for questioning."

"No, I never lied to you that day! After I left NCIS I was headed home but Simon flagged me down before I got there. He told me it wasn't safe for me at home. The gang was determined to deliver as promised and kill everyone Simon loved and Darius knew of us all. Simon helped me get a room at a local hotel under a fake name and told me everything about what had happened. We bought phones at a local store to keep in touch and he left me at the hotel and went off to try and talk to his father and get the evidence and the drugs together. You can see how _that_ turned out."

"We didn't find any of this evidence at his house." Gibbs said, pulling out a photo of the hole in the Private's backyard. "Just the drugs."

"Simon had it hidden somewhere else in case the drugs were ever found and he had every intention of turning it in to the proper authorities, but things are different now."

"Different how?"

"Imagine if your entire family had been killed Agent Gibbs." Tony's eyes went wide and he immediately checked his boss for signs of fracture. The woman was wielding an unintentional knife and every unconscious stab was coming closer and closer to Gibbs' jugular. His boss, however, showed no visible signs of distress. "Do you think you could calmly turn over evidence you'd collected of who did it to the authorities and then sit back and let justice take its course? Take the chance that those responsible could go free on some technicality and in the end still manage to have you killed? You strike me as the kind of man who would do exactly what my Simon is determined to do: find the men who killed his family and return the favor. Or, die trying."

"Is that what you want Mrs. Finch? To lose your son to some worthless gang bangers?"

"You misunderstand me, Agent Gibbs. That is the last thing in this world that I want for my son, but Simon has stopped returning my calls. He's on a mission. As a former Marine, I think you can understand that." Tony's eyes darted again to Gibbs but the arterial spray he'd expected never came.

"Then try to reach him again. Convince him to come in." Gibbs voice was steady, dead calm.

"Even if I could get him to take my call, he's not going to listen. It's a lost cause, Agent Gibbs!"

"Gloria, he's going to have a better chance of getting justice for his family if he works with me and my team. Out there on his own he's a hunted man with limited resources. In here I can put you both into protective custody and use the evidence he's collected to bring down each and every one of those murderers but I can't do that without your son. One Marine, lost and grieving on his own is nothing and can easily be manipulated but put a battalion of his fellow brothers behind him, and suddenly it's not so easy anymore. Call your son Mrs. Finch, talk him into coming in to help me put those child killers behind bars." Gibbs put the woman's confiscated phone down on the desk and Tony marveled at the speech his boss had just made. "Simon has a better chance at ending this on our side then he does out there on his own."

"And what if I help you and you can't protect him? You've seen what those men can do. Can you look me in the eye and promise me he'll be safe from those murderers? Those men who kill children?" There was no real anger left in Gloria Finch's eyes, only a far off lost look that begged for reassurance and pity.

"Mrs. Finch, you have my word that I will do everything within my power to bring your son in safely and unharmed but we have to do this now. The longer he's out there alone the more time those bastards have to track him down."

"But what if he won't answer? He's not going to answer." She said softly, brokenly, more tears dampening her cheeks.

"You have to try."

* * *

_Author's note: Whew! This chapter was a struggle for me but I think I'm finally happy with it now. Thank you to everyone who has left me reviews and for all the follows. I am so happy to see that people are enjoying this and eager for more. I'm getting into chapters now that still need a lot of work so it might take me a bit to get the next few ready and posted. I'll do my best!_


	9. Chapter 9

_He can't find the handle fast enough and the particularly sharp turn has him crashing side long into the metal shelves at his left. A pain flares in his shoulder but he ignores the throb and slips his free hand into the leather strap next to his head. The other hand, well, it's needed elsewhere and he doesn't dare move it anywhere than where it already is. _

_The chaos of the small space should be driving him crazy, but a quiet calm has descended upon him and he can almost hear the rain pelting the windows of the speeding vehicle. He counts rain drop patters and the shallow breaths at the same time._

_Up goes his chest, down goes his chest, all the way, all the way, all the way home. Some vestige of an old nursery rhyme springs to mind and he gives it a tune in his head._

_He's given his orders and expects that they will be followed to the letter so perhaps that is why he's so unnaturally calm. He's always been good at hiding it, but even the thunk of his heart is quiet and under control. He's the only one they let in the doors and he won't give them any reason to kick him out. In fact, he suspects the quieter he is, the more invisible he'll become and the longer it will take for them, in the end, to realize he's where he shouldn't be. But, as it stands now, the paramedic is too preoccupied to even bother with a sideways glance in his direction. Too many damn holes in the boat to plug and as if to illustrate, a heartbeat pushes more blood up past the gauze he tries so hard to hold steady._

_"Don't let that go." And suddenly he sees it: he has a mission. Tony has given him a mission, and it will get him through the blood and the speed and the chaos and the cardiac arrests and maybe, 'cause sometimes orders aren't always followed, no matter how sternly they are given, through something he dares not even name._

_DiNozzo wouldn't dare. He takes comfort in that thought and his staccato heart reins itself in again. _

_The boat rocks unexpectedly again and he's thrown backward this time. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine them out to sea, their vessel blown about in the winds of a raging storm that could end in any way. Capsized, floundering, or perfectly fine and none the worse for wear... No, the last one isn't feasible, the holes in the boat are already there and there's no coming back from that._

_"Agent Gibbs!" Was it the thoughts or the blood that took his mind away? He looks at the kid, no older than Tony. "I need you to switch seats with me. I need to intubate your agent."_

_It's the movement that undoes him in the end. It shifts his perspective and suddenly there's too much blood, the red of it all invading his vision, and the pounding of his heart is a drum line in his chest. It takes everything he has, every bit of Gibbsness he's got, to keep the eruption internal. Somehow, he manages to do it. The only evidence of the panic is a slight tremor in his hands._

_The hard part now, is to hold it all together. The feat seems impossible with the storm raging around him. Each rock of the rig sends a crack through the foundation and he's sweating under his vest. The vehicle slows and the siren cuts off, an echo of it still screaming in his ears. The doors are thrown open and someone is helping him out so that his hand never leaves the hole it is covering. He follows beside the gurney, cracking with each step he takes, leaving little bits of himself on the pavement and then the whole thing falls apart. Another hand replaces his, someone pulls him away and he sees it was all a farce, the idea that he had beaten them at their game. They were never going to overlook him or let him get far. All that pretending, all that control, wasted. So he does what he's been holding back ever since he first saw the handiwork of a knife against flesh, puts all his weight and fear and hopelessness behind a mighty punch to the wall, and hears the gasps of the hospital patrons around him. His fist comes back bloody, knuckles torn and weeping, and he doesn't care at all. _


	10. Chapter 10

When Gibbs exited the interrogation room, Tony was in the hallway waiting to intercept him. The senior agent was hard to read as he came out into the hall and Tony tried to decide how best to approach him about what had just happened. At the end of it all Gloria Finch had agreed to make the phone call to her son and plead with him to come in to NCIS but, as she had predicted throughout the interrogation, the call was ignored and went straight to voicemail without even ringing. McGee had been trying to track Private Finch ever since he had learned of the disposable phones the Admiral's wife had purchased but every time he had tried to find the Private using the phone, it had been a bust. Simon Finch was smart and had both turned off the phone and removed its battery. Try as he might, McGee could not turn the phone on remotely but hadn't given up. He checked back every 30 minutes or so on the off chance it had been turned back on. In case Finch was checking his messages remotely, Gibbs had Mrs. Finch leave an emotional message on her son's voicemail begging him to call her. They had no choice now but to return the Admiral's wife to her hotel room with a few agents as protection to see if Finch contacted her or happened to show up. It was a long shot, but worth a try. Gibbs had just finished briefing the agents who would accompany her back to the hotel when he finally exited the interrogation room. Saving Tony from the likely uncomfortable and one sided conversation into Gibbs feelings after the particularly emotional interrogation was Abby who was running down the hall towards them as fast as her platform shoes would allow.

"Gibbs! McGee sent me down here to get you as soon as you got out of interrogation. He wants to see you, like, yesterday." The harried forensic scientist was out of breath when she reached them so Tony resisted the urge to tease her about the tall black platforms she was sporting that day.

"Slow down, Abbs," Gibbs admonished lightly when she came near. "We were just on our way up."

"I told him he needs to go home but he won't listen to me! Tell him to go home Gibbs, his leg must be killing him by now." She pleaded as the three made their way to the elevator and climbed inside.

"Hey, I tried." Gibbs said in his defense.

"Then make him listen Gibbs! Use that patented Gibbs intimidation!" The goth's voice was rising, slowly filling the small space of the elevator, but one look from Gibbs had her quieting down.

"Just keep an eye on him, ok?" She said as the elevator dinged and deposited them in the bullpen. Gibbs let Tony out first and Abby started to follow but a quick kiss on the cheek from their boss and a whispered request in her ear had Abby reluctantly stepping back into the elevator and headed down to her own floor.

McGee was on them the moment the doors closed on Abby. He'd crutched over unsteadily and Gibbs reached out a steadying hand as his junior most agent wobbled dangerously with a grimace of pain.

"Shouldn't you be sitting down?" Gibbs asked seriously, but McGee ignored him. The three agents met Ziva over at McGee's desk and the Israeli pulled out his chair for him to sit. The younger agent looked about to protest but Gibbs gave him a glare that had him taking the proffered seat with a quick thank you to Ziva.

"I think I've found something. I listened in on the interrogation and when Mrs. Finch mentioned the shipments her son was supposed to intercept, I got an idea."

"You were in with Tony?" Gibbs asked, giving McGee a sharp look.

"No," McGee answered sheepishly. "I have a backdoor program installed in our computer system that lets me pull audio from interrogations when I need it. I just had to adjust some code and I was able to listen live." Gibbs shook his head in wonder at the confession. McGee's hacking skills could be unnerving at times, interrogations weren't readily available to all of NCIS. There was paperwork, protocol, procedure.

"Come on boss, the broken leg doesn't make it exactly easy for me to get around this place."

"What did you find, McGee?" Gibbs asked with a smile, apparently willing to let the protocol breach slide.

"Finch works at a newer facility on base, the Industrial Supply Center. Like his mother told us, they get shipments in from all over the United States. I hacked into their computers and found the shipping manifests. I ran the data through a program I wrote which basically is an algorith..."

"English, McGee!" Gibbs admonished, and not for the last time in his life.

"Sorry, boss. In a nut shell, I analyzed the data from the center and found multiple discrepancies going back months. The shipments Finch was intercepting arrived at the facility from California approximately the same time every week. If what Gloria Finch is telling us is true, the Knights Templar only found out about Finch gathering evidence against them about five days ago. There's a chance that there is still a shipment out there and on its way to where Finch worked. With the Private in the wind, they might try and make a play to recover their product."

"Gibbs, if there is any chance that cartel members are going to attempt to retrieve those drugs, I suggest we be there to intercept them." Ziva said quickly, excitement at a possible break in the case filling the room.

"As far as I can tell boss, and if the data is correct, the weekly shipment from California is due in on a delivery scheduled in 2 hours." McGee finished. The rising intensity in the room was almost palpable now.

"Boss

"Boss, if we could get there in time…" Tony voiced what they all were thinking and the thought had Gibbs jumping to action.

"Grab your gear. McGee, I want you to alert the base about what's going on and have them mobilize a tactical team, but tell them they cannot, under any circumstances, move on this until we get there. Then I want you up in MTAC ready to be our eyes in the sky." McGee quickly agreed and Gibbs took off towards the Director's office and left Tony and Ziva to arrange their gear. McGee was on the phone to Abby who appeared in record time with earpieces and anything else they might need for the mission. Kevlar vests were pulled out, earpieces tested and Tony tried to shake an anxious feeling that swept over him. Standing on the precipice of action had never been easy for him.

Armed and ready minutes later, they stood milling around McGee's desk in silent anticipation, waiting for their team leader to reappear. Even Abby was uncharacteristically silent but looked as though she had something to say and was about to burst with it. As mysterious as she tried to be, Tony had come to know the book of Abby from cover to cover over the years (though never in the biblical sense, she was like a sister to him) and could read her easily. He knew what she wanted to say. Squeezing her arm affectionately they shared a quick smile and a bit of the tension dropped from her frame.

When Gibbs finally reappeared Tony and Ziva followed him onto the elevator and past Director Vance who had come down to the floor behind Gibbs. Tony couldn't get rid of the dark feeling that fell down around his shoulders at the sight of the tiny group gathered to see them off. As the doors to the elevator began to close, Tony watched Abby, McGee and Director Vance disappear behind the steel.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNC ISNCISNCIS

Team Gibbs arrived on base in record time, cutting the 50 minute trip in half thanks to Ziva's breakneck driving. Tony had almost protested when Gibbs handed the keys to her, but they had made fantastic time and he was glad in the end that he hadn't said anything. When they arrived on base they were met by the tactical team assigned as back up and all had been prepared covertly as promised.

Gibbs coordinated with the leader of the team, a Captain Tom Cooper, and relayed the plan they'd agreed upon on the ride over. He, Tony and Ziva would stake out a place to watch the loading docks while the tactical team was on standby but ready to come in should things get out of control or prove to be too much for the Major Case Response Team to handle. Of course, there was also the chance that nothing would happen at all. McGee's guesses garnered from the shipping info he'd hacked could be off or the Knights Templar could have decided to cut their losses and leave the drugs. They had no idea what was going to happen but having the tactical team on standby was comforting to everyone.

Once everything was organized and in place, their truncated team was off in a lone unmarked car and headed towards the Industrial Supply Center on base. Gibbs was able to find a quiet side street where the loading docks were visible with binoculars through the trees and they sequestered themselves in to wait. McGee chatted at them tirelessly about where each member of the tactical team was being positioned and anything else he saw with a hijacked DOD satellite. As the hour of the predicted shipment approached, Tony tried to calm to butterflies in his stomach that had suddenly decided to make an appearance. He tried hard to keep a happy go lucky appearance about him in every aspect of his life, but at times like these when he was staring down uncertainty and courting the edge of the unknown he found it nearly impossible to keep up the façade. He only hoped Ziva and Gibbs hadn't picked up on his nervous energy or how he kept his hands firmly on his knees to keep them from fidgeting.

"Everything looks good, boss," McGee's voice clanged in their collective eardrums. "I'll alert you to any approaching trucks. Standby."

Tony took his own pair of binoculars out and trained them in the same direction as Gibbs and Ziva. When he found what he was looking for he tried to keep the building centered in his field of vision. Nothing was happening and they were still a ways off from when McGee expected the shipment to arrive.

"Do you think anyone will come?" Ziva asked from the backseat to no one in particular.

"If there is another shipment of drugs on the way, chances are they will." Gibbs answered from behind his binoculars. Tony lowered his and looked for the 100th time at the dashboard clock. Exactly 20 minutes later, McGee's voice crackled back to life in his ear.

"Ok, there's a truck approaching the loading docks two yards east of you. Do you have a visual Gibbs?

"Affirmative." Gibbs replied.

"They're turning in your direction. White cab, blue container. Tactical team do you have visual? Copy that, tactical team has visual. There are 2 people in the cab, one driver one passenger, both males and no weapons visible. The truck will be there in 60 seconds. Standby." McGee clicked off and exactly 60 seconds later Tony watched the white and blue rig maneuver into the loading dock. The three agents watched silently for any signs that something was about to go down.

Once the truck had backed up fully it's rather large and tattooed driver put the rig in park and jumped out. His passenger remained inside the cab and the imposing driver approached the loading crew. The meeting was surprisingly friendly. The imposing driver shook hands with the head of the loading team and they sat talking companionably as the crew emptied the truck. Tony supposed the driver looked like the kind of guy who might know he was embroiled in a cross country drug smuggling operation, then again Tony DiNozzo knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. When the truck had been emptied the driver hauled himself back into his cab and with a wave to the crew leader drove out of the lot and back out onto the Quantico streets. Nothing had happened and Tony felt a slight twinge of disappointment.

"Boss," came McGee's voice in Tony's ear again, "does tactical team intercept the truck?"

Gibbs contemplated his answer for a moment and strummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

"Intercept, McGee, but wait till they're farther away. I don't want to spook anyone."

"Copy that, Boss."

"Now what?" Tony really hadn't meant to ask the question out loud.

"Now we wait."

An hour later the sun was beginning its early evening descent in the sky and still nothing had happened. Well, not exactly _nothing_. McGee had been able to clear the driver and his passenger of any involvement with the drug cartel. The driver ended up being a rather friendly family man who was more worried about his company finding out he had a friend with him on the haul than why the Feds were pulling over his rig. The loading door had remained open and gave the team a good view of what was going on in the bay. The crew had left the boxes to sit and had started in on a lively game of cards and Tony could almost hear their laughter and shouts through his open window. He ripped open a bag of chips he'd stashed in his pack and laid his binoculars across his knee. Gibbs eyed him with a wary expression but didn't say anything about his impromptu snack. The gray haired senior agent turned away with a half-smile when Tony grinned at him from around a mouthful of chips.

He sat in the silence letting Gibbs and Ziva keep their binoculars trained on the loading bay while he tried to chew his chips quietly. It wasn't working and every mouthful crackled in the still air of the car. He didn't know whether to joke about it or worry that he was driving his fellow team members crazy. He didn't have the chance to find out though as McGee chose that moment to begin yelling in his ear.

"White van! Gibbs, tactical reports a white van approaching from the south at a high rate of speed. Ok! I've got them now. No plates, one driver and no passenger, no windows in the back, unknown number of hostiles! They'll be at the docks in less than a minute!" Gibbs had the car started and in drive before Tony even had time to dump the empty chip bag or fasten his seatbelt. They were far enough away that chances were no one would see them approach but if they didn't get to the docks fast, whoever was in the van could cause some serious damage and the Knights Templar had proved time and again just what they were capable of.

Tony could hear Gibbs in his head, firing off orders in the earwig as they raced toward the loading area behind the Industrial Supply facility. The binoculars in Tony's lap were thrown to the floor and the force of Gibbs' turn on the next street slammed him into the passenger side door. He really needed to remember to keep his seatbelt on at all times when riding with his coworkers. Every one of them had proven themselves insane when it came to getting somewhere fast. Tony could do nothing but hold on for dear life in the front passenger seat. When the center of gravity in the car finally righted itself, Tony yanked his seatbelt into place and gripped the door beside him through the open window with white knuckles. This was it. Whoever was in that van could make or break their case and the glimmer of hope that this would all be over soon was enough to almost make Tony smile. The next turn, however, turned that ghost of a smile into an all-out grimace.

As Gibbs screeched around the final turn, Tony got a good look at the van that had come to a stop in front of the gate to the loading dock. The rear loading area of the building was fenced off with a small security booth just inside a chain link fence to control the gate that moved side to side along an electrified track. The gate was open at the moment and luckily no one occupied the security booth. The concrete yard beyond had room for large commercial trucks to come and go but also held unused equipment, empty shipping containers and other base detritus.

Tony counted the men piling out of the van's side door and ended at five, all in dark hoodies and all with guns drawn and faces masked and he immediately knew they were in trouble. In trouble and out gunned. Gibbs seemed to sense it too and was on the coms to McGee calling for the tactical team. Tony heard McGee acknowledge in his ear.

They were still about thirty yards down the road from the van. Gibbs hit the brakes hard and slowed the car to a crawl. He was doing what Tony's instincts were screaming at him to do, blend in, disappear, avoid detection. It was the right call. One or two of the gunman had looked their way, but the car's windows were tinted and Gibbs had pulled close to the curb. They weren't given a second glance and the group of men moved off towards the loading bay, their backs to the team's car. Tony could feel his boss beside him, working through the scenarios of how the next few minutes might go. Tony couldn't decide if he wanted to tell the seasoned agent to punch it and go in with guns blazing or hang back and let the tactical team handle things. The report of gunfire made the decision for them.

The white van and the approaching black figures had caught the attention of a man on the loading dock who started to point and talk to someone inside the bay. The man made a hasty retreat and the cargo bay door began a slow descent. The masked men began a mad dash to beat the closing steel door, firing wildly as they ran, and Gibbs hit the gas. He came to a screeching halt behind the van.

The three agents were on the pavement in seconds with guns drawn and Tony felt his mind shift and focus. It was a headspace he'd often enter at times like these. Once or twice he'd even gotten so lost in it that he barely remembered the ensuing firefight and took the compliments on his marksmanship and cool calm from the rest of the team without understanding where they had come from. It was scary at times but necessary at others. Senses focused and sharp, he followed Gibbs with gun raised as they approached the driver side window of the van. A minute tilt of the head by Gibbs to Ziva had her breaking off from his flank and headed around to the other side of the van. A moment later Tony watched the driver lock eyes with Gibbs in the side view mirror and the young kid's eyes went dark. Tony's senses felt heightened and his brain processed several things at once. The kid behind the wheel of the car was no more than 16 or 17 years old but the look he and Gibbs shared for the briefest of seconds was not full of adolescent fear and uncertainty. No, the look in the eyes that were locked on Tony's team leader were full of malice and hate. Emotions that had no business being in the eyes of a child. The sightline didn't hold long and a second later the kid was shifting in his seat and then disappeared from view. Every nerve ending in Tony's body prickled and his instincts had him raising his gun ever so slightly and training it at the empty driver side window. The kid was going for a gun, he was sure of it, and he steeled himself in calm focus. But it didn't happen the way he expected. Gibbs saw something he didn't and chanced a quick look through the open window then gave Tony the sign for all clear. The senior agent gave him a quizzical look when he didn't lower his weapon and seemed to become aware of the intensity rolling off Tony in waves. He was trying to release the tension but something in his body was refusing to stand down. Seconds later the kid reappeared in the driver side window, his head appearing disembodied from Tony's perspective, and he started to scream.

The word was loud in the air around Tony but cut short by a fierce blow to the face by Gibbs' elbow that had blood spurting from the young boy's nose. It didn't help, however, the damage had been done. It took one word for guns to be trained in their direction. One word to have Tony and Gibbs running for cover as round after round imbedded themselves into the metal sides of the van as they ducked and weaved for survival.

"FEDS!"

Somehow, incredibly both Tony and Gibbs had made it to the other side of the van without being hit.

"McGee, we're taking fire! Where is the damn tactical team!?" Tony didn't hear the answer.

His attention was diverted to Ziva who was pulling the young driver bodily out of the van by his feet and her captive was combating her at every opportunity by grabbing steering wheel, gear shift then seat. Ziva was struggling and Tony ran to help just as the front glass of the van exploded in the hail of gun fire. The air was alive with a shower of glinting shards and Ziva fell backwards when the driver released his hold on the seat to cover his head with his hands. Tony dropped instinctively to take cover and the bruised ribs at his side protested suddenly and loudly. He covered them with a hand and fell to his knees on the ground below the passenger side window. Breathing was difficult. The stress and the pain had combined forces and were suddenly on the attack, threatening to pull him into a panic. At the same time his brain was screaming at him to check on Ziva and to subdue the young driver who was pulling himself up off the ground and preparing to make a break for it. He pointed towards the driver, hoping whoever was unhurt and mobile might see the gesture and stop the kid's escape. Gibbs entered his peripheral vision and body checked the young kid hard into the side of the van with cuffs at the ready. Sure that Gibbs had everything under control he let his head drop and tried to breathe through the pain. Something wasn't right.

"Tony, are you alright?" It was Ziva who knelt beside him and he noted with a little release of anxiety that she was unhurt except for a few bleeding cuts on her arms. Seeing her whole and in front of his eyes calmed him and a bit of the tension in his chest eased even as the bullets continued to fly around them.

"Just twinged my ribs. I'm okay," he lied but only slightly. The pain _was_ dissipating a bit and he was becoming aware of his surroundings again. He even caught the sound of different ammunition firing and looked up the street to see three armored cars strategically placed and the tactical team trading gunfire with the masked group of men from behind the makeshift stronghold. The team had arrived and had drawn fire away from the van and the agents who had taken up cover behind it.

Ziva helped him to his feet and pulled him over near where Gibbs was dealing with the unhappy driver and trying to talk to McGee at the same time. Tony leaned his back against the side of the vehicle and let his head fall back against the metal. He was regaining control now and the pain in his ribs had reduced to a manageable throb. Ziva and Gibbs were staring at him, he could feel their gazes on him even with his eyes closed as he concentrated on pulling himself together. A panic attack and an aggravation of bruised ribs... he could hardly remember a day anymore when he wasn't angry, frustrated and injured. He sighed at the ridiculousness of the thought and forced his eyes open. This moment he found himself in was far from over and he needed to be focused and 100% for his team. Tony turned his head toward Ziva and offered her a reassuring smile and a silly thumbs up as proof that he was okay now, that he was there and ready to jump back into the fray with her. She studied him for a second, her eyes scanning him from head to toe, then she nodded to Gibbs. Apparently he'd passed her inspection.

Gibbs was having one hell of a time with the driver who was spitting and yelling as loud as he possibly could and thrashing against his bonds. He was refusing to quiet and had apparently decided it was his own personal mission to regain the attention of his comrades. Tony watched Gibbs quickly reach the end of his rope and land a hard punch across the kids face. His constant stream of expletives was silenced and he crumpled toward the ground unconscious. Ziva left his side to help Gibbs who'd caught the kid by the armpits before he fell to the ground. Together they deposited him in a heap on the pavement. Even with the kid now silenced, every few seconds Tony could hear a round thunk into the side of the van. He made his way to the front of the vehicle and peered cautiously through the passenger side window and the now destroyed front glass to see what was going on. A stray bullet had him ducking down seconds later, his ribs mercifully staying quiet. Gibbs and Ziva joined him and they took a moment to regroup.

"I still see five shooters, Boss. It looks like the loading crew got the door shut in time. The tactical team seems to be keeping them busy." Gibbs reached out a hand and hooked a finger around something dangling from his vest. It was the earpiece he didn't remember pulling out and as he replaced it in his ear McGee's voice was coming through and relaying the same intel he'd just nearly been shot trying to obtain. "Oh." he said with all the sheepishness he felt.

"Boss, Captain Cooper is on his way to you. He just turned onto the street where you are." McGee's familiar voice was almost comforting after its long absence from his ear.

"Copy that McGee. I see him." Tony followed Gibbs line of sight down the street and spotted the armored military vehicle making its way toward them. The Captain came to a stop behind the cover of the van. One of the gunmen must have spotted the Hummer as a few ineffectual shots rang out and thunked harmlessly into the other side of the van as the Captain's vehicle had approached. The Captain jumped out to join them and glanced at the young driver lying cuffed and unconscious on the ground. If he thought it odd, he didn't show it.

"Agent Gibbs, I'm glad to see that you and your team are okay. If you'll come with me, I'll get you out of here and back behind the tactical team's perimeter."

"Not a chance, Marine." Gibbs said icily and the Captain stared at him in surprise. Gibbs squared his shoulders and gave his orders with all the authority of his Gunnery days of old. "I want you to get snipers up on the roof of that building there and that building over there. Then you're going to take my people around to the front of the building and get them safely inside. Tony and Ziva, once you're in, secure anyone still left inside and get them out then see if you can't get that door open. Captain, if opening the door draws the gunman out like I think it will, your snipers have the go ahead to take them down." Gibbs didn't wait for Cooper's acceptance of the plan, he just walked away with a finger to his ear to talk further with McGee. Tony turned to the Captain and looked at him expectantly.

"You heard the Gunnery. Let's go!" The Captain looked as though he so badly wanted to argue, to reaffirm his authority after having been so effortlessly debased by a man he'd met only hours ago. He ended up offering no resistance and Tony and Ziva pulled themselves and the unconscious driver into the back of the fortified Hummer. Cooper put the vehicle in reverse and backed away from the ongoing gunfight.

The trip around the block was quick and the Captain stopped in front of the facility to drop them off after radioing his team Gibbs' orders. A quick scan of the surrounding area showed no signs of any danger and the only people visible were the 4 men of the loading crew who had gotten out of the building and were gathered in a terrified huddle outside the front entrance not sure where to go. Tony and Ziva jumped out of the Hummer and as soon as the group noted their NCIS vests and badges, they were running towards the safety of the agents and the armored military vehicle. The Captain got every last one of them loaded then wished Tony and Ziva good luck before pulling away. Tony watched the retreating vehicle and only looked away once it had disappeared from sight. He turned to follow Ziva into the building but the sound of approaching sirens had him reaching for his com. link with McGee. Gibbs beat him to it.

"McGee, someone called the local PD. You make sure those boys know what they're walking into.

"On it, boss."

Satisfied everything was under control, Tony pulled the earpiece from his ear and let it dangle from its curled cord, this time conscious of the action. If they were going to storm the facility, he needed McGee out of his head and all his wits about him to sense a threat or locate someone still stuck in the building. He couldn't afford distraction and Ziva seemed to have the same thought and removed hers as well.

"Are you ready, Tony?" She asked with the slightest tilt of her head.

"I'm ready."

The halls of the Industrial Supply Center were equipped with motion detectors that turned on the lights as they approached but each time the lights came to life on their own, Tony found himself startled and a little unnerved. He didn't like the idea that someone might get advanced warning of their approach, even though he was fairly certain none of the masked men had made it into the building. He was on red alert again and his thoughts had descended down to a place where they focused on little else than assessing the threat level of his surroundings and tracking Ziva's movements around him as he led the way with gun unholstered.

They encountered no one as they swept through to the back of the building and finally found their way into the empty loading bay. The room was quiet, the sound of gunfire outside the thick walls sounded like stones being thrown against brick. Tony scanned the cavernous space and quickly located the mechanism that would open the doors and put his earpiece back in to hail Gibbs.

"Boss, building is secure and we're in the loading bay."

"Good job. On my mark, open the door." Gibbs crackled over the line.

"Got it, boss." Tony motioned for Ziva to take up position to the left of the bay door against the far wall. From that vantage point she could intercept anyone who tried to gain access to the bay and stay out of range of any bullets that might find their way in through the door that was about to open. Tony would take position on the other side of the door once he'd pressed the button to start the bay door opening. It moved slowly enough that he would have plenty of time to get where he needed to be before things got hairy. He waited with bated breath for the word from Gibbs.

"NOW TONY!" For a fraction of a second his eyes searched out Ziva's and locked onto her gaze. Silent communication passed between them like lightening and Tony slammed home the red button that controlled the door. Unseen mechanics whined and protested but the door began its ascent and Tony dove for his scouted position on the other side of the room. Almost immediately the sounds of shouts and the gunfight outside the door filled the room and bounced around the walls. Several rounds flew into the bay but the bullets ended up harmlessly embedded in the wall opposite them, their velocity scattering little plumes of drywall dust into the air with each hit. Tony and Ziva remained safely hidden behind the thick concrete walls. Tony thought he could make out Gibbs' voice yelling out over a megaphone but couldn't make out the words.

Tony plastered himself a little tighter against the wall behind him and tried to put a picture to the sounds he was hearing from outside. Every so often McGee's voice came over the earpiece and let them know another gunman had been taken down. He looked over to check on Ziva and found her with gun drawn and face stern. She was watching the open door intently, her eyes flitting in his direction every so often.

"Tony! Head's up!" McGee's warning crackled in his ear just as a black clad figure dove into the bay and somersaulted to safety. Several larger caliber sniper rounds followed him in but they were too late. Tony and Ziva shrank back against the walls trying to make themselves as invisible as possible to see what the man would do next. The black clad figure removed his mask and Tony found himself looking at another young kid who barely looked over eighteen. This kid knew exactly where he was going and made straight for a crate on the other side of the room. He set his gun on a bin nearby and tore into the shipping crate to examined its contents. When he pulled up a brick of cocaine, Tony and Ziva made their move.

"FEDERAL AGENTS! DROP YOUR WEAPON AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR," it was Ziva who bellowed the words but the masked man didn't follow the order and swung around to face the agents, grabbing his discarded gun on the way. Ziva landed two well-placed slugs in the man's shoulder and knee and his weapon clattered away noisily. He crumpled to the ground with a scream of agony and Ziva moved in to secure him. Tony swept their perimeter with his gun to make sure no one rushed the bay door at the sound of the young man's screams. Ziva made quick work of cuffing the kid and moving him off to the side and out of sight. Once confident they were in the clear for the moment, Tony secured the man's gun.

"We've got on in custody," he said out to the airwaves to anyone who might be listening and it was McGee who responded back.

"It's over, Tony." he said somberly. "You've got the only survivor. Gibbs is on his way to you. Standby." It only took Gibbs a few minutes to reach them and Tony helped his boss climb onto the loading platform.

"Alright?" Gibbs asked when he was up, surveying Tony with a quick once over, seemingly satisfied with the nod Tony gave. Gibbs walked over to Ziva and gave her the same treatment before turning his attention to the fallen gunman. The man, well, kid really, was moaning as Ziva manhandled him into a chair and held him upright before Gibbs. Blood was gathering at the wounds Ziva had given him, but the hits were well placed and he would have minimal damage and blood loss. Gibbs pulled up his own chair and set it before the injured young man and Ziva pointed out the angel tattoo inked into the skin of the teen's forearm. Tony knew what was coming next and for a split second contemplated leaving but loyalty to Gibbs had him staying and holding his ground. Someone would need to run interference should people come inquiring after the screams.

* * *

_Author's note: I love it when I rewrite chapters and they turn into something I didn't expect. This is twice as long as it started and, I think, twice as fun as it was :) Please take a moment to leave a review and thanks to everyone who's already left one! Un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine._


	11. Chapter 11

_He has had many faces throughout his long years. He's been a student, a poet, a lover of women, a worrier and a soldier. He's been the force to be reckoned with, a friend, a mentor, the hard place and the rock. He has been a care giver, a mourner, a jester and a liar. He's held those who cried, and shed a tear or two himself. He's fished bodies out of rivers and trudged through the entrails of the dead. But, above all (and at this, the sunset of his life) he is the NCIS Chief Medical Examiner who has no business sitting impatiently in the ME van, waiting to be summoned. _

_Jimmy drums absently on the seatbelt he still has striped across his chest. They both understand the danger that assignments like these hold for Gibbs and his team and perhaps his young assistant leaves the belt buckled to anchor himself to calm, only his fingers free to dance staccato against the leather. The movement brings to mind a long forgotten memory of a childhood meeting with the great pianist, Eileen Joyce. The vision of her hands floating across the black and white keys of his family's piano swims to the forefront of his mind and he longs to regale Jimmy with the exhilaration of watching the Scottish woman play. He sighs, knowing full well the young man will know nothing of the famous pianist. _

_'Oh,' he dialogues internally, 'what else have we got to do?' but all that comes out is:_

_"Jimmy." _

_The fingertips against leather stop and his assistant shrinks sheepishly inward with a muttered apology. The van feels empty without his noise._

_It's an inconvenience, sitting here waiting to be summoned. He's been promised a crime scene but unknown voices have come across the radio to stop them in their tracks while a manhunt is underway. He can only guess at who they are looking for and they sit now in the silence waiting for the all clear. Two crime scenes in one night… He can't quiet explain the inexplicable draw Leroy Jethro Gibbs has to those around him, but when the NCIS agent summons, Ducky Mallard follows. He tries to ascertain if this realization bothers him or not._

_They are far from the chaos that is unlikely unfolding at this moment. Ducky Mallard has had enough of warzones. His place, coming in and investigating, cleansing the wounds and sewing closed the holes, he accepts. There was a time in his life when perhaps he would have been happy in the mêlée, but fire fights are no place for a wizened old Scot and his wet behind the ears assistant. This thought startles him and he appraises his quietly fidgeting protégé. _

_Perhaps wet behind the ears is not an appropriate label for James Palmer. When he first started in Ducky's lab, the young man had come on the coat-tails of disaster and had settled in surprisingly well. Gerald being a fresh wound, the bumbling yet sincere Jimmy had been a bit of a salve on his psyche, bringing a youthfulness and excitement back to the Medical Examiner position. Mr. Palmer had been through kidnappings, betrayals, attempted murder and through it all had proved to be a most loyal and adept colleague. _

_And, dare he say, friend. _

_He remembers explicitly whose hand it was holding his when he awoke in hospital so many months ago. No, wet behind the ears may have described Jimmy Palmer many years ago, but certainly not today, where they sit flirting with the edge of other people's wars. The tapping is back and Ducky's radio whines to life. _

_"Doctor Mallard, we need you here NOW." Again, it is not Gibbs voice that summons him, but an unknown voice and he shares a terrified glance with his assistant who starts the van without being asked. They screech through a quiet neighborhood, the evening sun casting odd and wavering shadows that come and go behind gathering storm clouds. Ducky knows he should have something to say to Palmer about his driving, but he's too busy trying to hail someone, anyone , through the radio. They remain stubbornly silent until a voice crackles through._

_ "Dr. Mallard, Gibb's requests you move your ass," and relays directions to their location. The ME does not have to pass this information to Palmer who is maneuvering them deftly towards a crowd of red and blue lights, a riot for dominance in motion. They are waving at him and Jimmy slams on the breaks, the seatbelt constricting on Ducky's chest almost painfully. Whatever discomfort he thinks he should be feeling is quickly forgotten and he's jumping out onto the pavement._

_Someone yells his name and he's running faster than he's run in a year. Through a yard and into the back past officers and soldiers, over the river and through the entrails to a prone figure amidst a flurry of activity._

_Gibbs looks to him with fear in his eyes and blood smeared on his cheek. The raw, unguarded terror he sees there is so completely out of character for Gibbs that it springs him into action immediately. Before he knows what he's done, he's pushed Jethro away, batted Ziva's hands from off of his patient and rips the shirt completely from his torso. There are trenches carved into his patient. _

_This body he's been given is not dead and not presented for autopsy. This specimen is alive and leaking his lifeblood into the grass. He grabs the pressure bandages someone is holding out to him and he replaces Ziva's hands to stem the flow, not sure if he's been speaking his orders or working silently. The lights are too bright, the scene is too close, too personal yet he finds himself inquiring calmly after an ambulance._

_"ETA 7 minutes" someone says to his left._

_"He doesn't have 7 minutes."_

_"Doctor," its Jimmy, holding out the paddles of the defibrillator from the back of the ME van. Rarely needed and rarely used. The thought strikes him as funny because neither is his medic field training. His hands feel unskilled as he removes his bloody fingers from a pulse point and shakily takes the paddles. He doesn't recall asking for them, but he's been working with Jimmy for so long, perhaps he didn't need to._

_Plastic pads to chest, paddles to plastic, one, two, three, charged. CLEAR!_

_He'll never get used to the sight of the convulsion the electricity elicits from the body, but if it saves the dying man, it's worth being endured. His finger finds a pulse point again and there is faint movement under his touch. He looks to those around him and announces the pulse as a father announces a new addition to the family and is met with stares of relief. However, this is far from over, but the sirens are audible now, even over the chaos. Paramedics will swarm soon and Ducky Mallard will be relegated back to Coroner. He's okay with that. For soon he'll take on another face. He's had many faces throughout his long years, what's one more._


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's note: This chapter is rated 'M' for a scene of torture_

* * *

"I'm going to give you one chance and one chance only to tell me what I want to know or I walk out of this building and tell those men out there that you're dead. Do you understand?" The kid didn't give a yes or a no but was looking at Gibbs with a certain understanding of his situation. Gibbs had again pulled himself into interrogation mode and Tony eyed his boss critically, checking for breaks. Two tough interrogations in one day would not likely leave him unscathed and Tony fought an urge to diffuse the situation, to pull the team leader away and talk him out of what he was about to do. He knew what Gibbs would say. He could even guess at how the conversation would go and knew it would end with a head slap and a schism between them so he remained quiet

"Why are you here?" The injured man had calmed a bit, adrenalin fueling the cold stare the young man was now giving Gibbs. The Angel remained silent. Gibbs eyes flicked to Ziva and the former Mossad agent dug the tip of a single finger into the bullet wound at the man's shoulder. He gave up a wail of pain and Ziva immediately withdrew.

"I believe my boss asked you a question," she hissed in his ear as the young Angel panted and groaned. He was drenched in sweat, in obvious pain, but Ziva would show him no mercy.

"They told us to pick up a shipment." came the reluctant reply though clenched teeth.

"Who?" Gibbs asked

"I'm a dead man if I talk to you, Fed." Gibbs eyes flashed again in Ziva's direction and the offending finger returned but this time she didn't pull away when the young man started to scream. What felt like ages later she granted him a reprieve and Tony went to the loading bay door to make sure no one was coming to investigate obvious sounds of torture coming from the door. Torture. He rolled the word on this tongue and wondered if they had crossed a line. Outside, the tactical team was busy cleaning up the carnage that now covered the loading docks and no one was looking their way. Tony returned to Gibbs, confident they would not be disturbed.

"Look at it this way, you can either tell me what I want to know and live the next few days of your life pain free or continue to bullshit me and I fill your last few minutes of life with excruciating pain. Your call. Who sent you? Was it Martinez?" At the mention of Martinez' name, the injured man before them became quiet and refused to confirm or deny. Gibbs looked again to Ziva but the young man caught the look and started talking before the pain could start.

"If you know him then you know what he'll do to me if I talk. You don't snitch on a fuckin' drug cartel..." This time it was Gibbs who dug knuckles into the wound at the kid's knee and his cries of agony grated directly against Tony's nerves. He didn't think he or the kid could take much more, but the wounded Angel was their last chance and sometimes you had to court the edge when it came to your last chance. The realization of what he was doing made him stop for a moment. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd had to justify his boss' actions to himself and now he had one more tick mark added to the tally. Gibbs didn't stop until the kid began to beg.

"Martinez sent us in to retrieve a shipment he was expecting." he said shakily, his voice wavering.

"From California?"

"Yeah."

"How does he get the shipments out of California?"

"I don't know, man," the fingers were back, Tony fought the urge to cover his ears.

"I don't know!" It was a bellow that had each of the agents believing it true. "My boss deals with the guy, we rarely see him. He told my boss to have us recover a shipment, that's all I know." He was talking fast now, anything to escape the pain.

"He wasn't here today?"

"Are you kidding? None of his guys were, he had my boss do his dirty work." There was a bitterness behind his words that Tony did not miss. "He's not stupid."

"Who's your boss? Darius Jones?" The injured man's pain lined eyes shot to Gibbs, obviously surprised at how much he knew and the names he was dropping.

"Is your boss Darius Jones?" Gibbs asked again and when loyalty had the young man's chin jutting out in one last try at defiance, Ziva dug again into the shoulder wound and didn't let go until the young man's head fell forward and he appeared to have passed out. Ziva removed her finger and the sweat covered man began to shake. He hadn't passed out completely.

"Yes, Darius Jones" came the barely there reply. "Please, no more."

"Do you know Private Simon Finch?"

"We were supposed to... get the drugs... then kill him." came the defeated reply.

"He was going to be here?" Gibbs asked, trying to wring a few more answers from their quaking captive.

"Darius said... Martinez set it up. Finch... to meet him here. Surprise attack, kill him. Knew Finch... from before... But he wasn't here... You were." There were tears streaming down the Angel's face now and the blood loss and the constant pain was starting to take its toll. They couldn't keep this up much longer. The injured man was fading fast.

"Did he kill Finch's family?"

"TONY! TONY! Can you hear me?" Tony's attention was pulled away from the intense moment by his name sounding in the small earpiece dangling from his vest. He walked to the other side of the room and put the earpiece back in.

"Yeah, McGee. What's up?"

"God! Finally! I've been trying to raise you guys for the past 10 minutes. Where's Gibbs?" McGee's voice was frantic.

"He's interrogating a suspect. I swear, it's like watching that scene from Reservoir..." he started, the intenseness of the last few days pulling his lighter side out suddenly in a last ditch effort to remain grounded.

"TONY!" McGee yelled in his ear, "tell him to get his ear piece in NOW!"

"McGee, I can't exactly interrupt….

"NOW TONY!"

"Okay! Hold on." Tony tentatively walked back over to where Gibbs was still trying to wring more answers from the now barely conscious gang banger. Tony put a tentative hand on Gibb's shoulder, now was as good a time as any.

"Put your earpiece back in, Boss. McGee says he's got something." Tony said quietly and Gibbs turned to look up at him. There was a far off look in Gibbs eye that had Tony worried for a split second before it mercifully cleared and Gibbs maneuvered his own earpiece back in place while asking Ziva to please go find the now unconscious gang member an ambulance. She nodded and disappeared out into the early evening sunshine.

"Gibbs!" McGee's voice sounded, "Simon Finch turned on his cell phone 10 minutes ago and it's still on! I was able to pinpoint his location. He's back at his house!"

"McGee, you sure?" Gibbs asked, as surprised as Tony was at the turn of events.

"Positive, boss. You guys are only about 10 minutes away. He made two calls, one I couldn't trace and one to his mother. The agents we have with her called in and said Finch told her he was going to end this tonight. Boss, you gotta get over to that house now!" Gibbs was already on his way out of the loading dock before McGee had finished, Tony following close behind. They grabbed a bewildered Ziva on the way and Tony filled her as Gibbs sprinted off to talk with Captain Cooper.

"Captain, we have a lead on our missing Marine. Can you spare a few men? I could use the back up." Gibbs wasn't going to take any chances, not after the intense firefight they had had, and that was only with a handful of street gang members. There was no telling what they might walk into at the Finch residence. The Captain was quick to agree and promised 5 of his best men. Gibbs passed the address of the Finch house to Cooper and took one of the tactical team's radios to keep in touch with the Captain. Gibbs joined Tony and Ziva at the car and they tore off from the crime scene.

"McGee, let the director know where we're headed." Gibbs told McGee once they were out on open roads.

"Already done, Boss"

"Is Ducky on his way?"

"Yeah, he and Palmer left here about an hour ago like you asked. Should be there soon."

"Copy that. They're going to start bringing in the evidence from the crime scene. Help Abby if she needs it."

"I will, Boss." Then as if in afterthought he continued. "I hate not being out there with you guys."

"Don't worry, Tim," Tony laughed, hearing the mournful note to their abandoned colleague's voice. "We'll have you back in action before you know it."

"I'm losing access to the satellite I tasked in a few minutes. The DOD needs it for something they tell me is classified and none of my business so I'll keep in radio contact but I won't have any images for you. Let me when it's over, okay?" He asked forlornly, dropping the officialness he'd managed to maintain for most of the afternoon.

"That's a promise, Tim," Gibbs said with the faintest hint of tenderness and gave McGee the channel he was on with the absconded tactical team radio.

"Alright. I've got it. McGee out." The frequency clicked silent and the three agents removed their earpieces, no longer needing the connection with MTAC. Tony could only imagine what McGee was feeling at the moment, cut off from his team and unable to join them as they barreled toward the unknown riding the cusp of unpredictable danger. If you sat Tony DiNozzo down and asked him if he loved this part of the job, he would probably lie and tell you no, he was a professional and that it was all part of being Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, but deep down, the thrill of the chase and another chance to play hero was as alluring as ever.

Yeah, he loved this part.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

Gibbs came to halt a block or so away from Private Finch's house and the team found themselves back where everything had started. They'd come full circle on one of the most aggravating and frustrating cases Tony could ever remember working since joining NCIS all those years ago. The sooner they could close the book on the emotional case, the better.

Tony closed his door carefully after exiting the car and Gibbs and Ziva followed suit. They couldn't risk anyone noticing that they had arrived. The tactical team was still a few minutes out and for the moment they were on their own with no idea of what they were walking into. The players in this game were cunning and had cheated, murdered and manipulated at every turn and Tony couldn't help but feel that fate was continuously and purposely dealing them bad hands. There had to be a break for them somewhere. One deal that would put their broken team back on top and in the winner's circle but that hand had been elusive. Lady luck was being unusually cruel and Tony could have slapped the bitch. He chuckled at the thought.

Evening was now in full decent and back at NCIS Tony imagined those who could would be getting ready to leave for the day. The sinking sun was casting long shadows across the neat suburban street and nothing could be heard but the chirping of birds. Tony briefly thought of the people in the homes that they passed while crossing through lawns to reach the Finch home unseen. He wondered, if another firefight broke out like the one they had just left, would the families be safe in behind their front doors? It was thoughts like that his training taught him to ignore and he pushed them from his mind. Once they were neared the house, Gibbs gave a sign for Tony and Ziva to head to the back of the house and Tony realized what his boss was going for.

There was a sliding glass door at the back of the house that, if it had been left open, would provide them easy access inside. Tall bushes near the door would provide them plenty of cover and the sun had sunk low enough behind the trees behind the house that they would have shadow to cover them further. Tony rounded the corner of the house and found the backyard painted in dark sinewy shadows from the trees. It was perfect and he silently took back his crack at Lady Luck.

When they neared the sliding glass door, Tony found he had somehow taken the lead. Gibbs was on his heels and Ziva had taken up the rear. His eyes darted to the woods at the back of the property and the memory of his last visit there ran through his thoughts. The replay of McGee's cry as Finch broke his leg sent a shiver up Tony's spine and he knew he needed to school his emotions and prepare for the worst case scenario. Every single individual implicated in their case was dangerous, each had proven it time and time again, and Tony knew he had to be 100%. Anything less and he was a dead man for none of the men he expected to find at the house tonight would hesitate to blow his head off. He checked the safety of his gun for good measure then cautiously approached the sliding glass door. Yellow crime scene tape was x'd across the glass but the door was ever so slightly ajar and Tony carefully peered around the wall and inside the house.

The disappearing sun was to their advantage and Tony was able to see clearly through the glass but that meant that he was also visible to whomever was inside. That didn't matter, however, as a large muscular man stood with his back to Tony, blocking his view. While a sweep of the interior was impossible, Tony was able to observe the telltale bulge of a large weapon hidden in the band of the man's jeans. He backed away when voices started floating out through the crack in the door.

"Where'd you hide it, Finch?"

"Like I'd tell you!" The sickening sound of fist meeting flesh reached Tony's ears.

"Are you hearing this?" Tony mouthed to Gibbs and Ziva. Both nodded and he pulled his attention back to the conversation.

"You got 30 seconds to tell me where you stashed my drugs and the tapes or every member of my crew gets a copy of your mommy's picture and an order to kill her on sight. I'm done playing with you, boy."

"Fuck you, Darius. You killed my family. I'm not giving you anything."

"Simon, if anyone killed your family it was you. You don't mess with a fuckin' drug cartel like that and live to tell about it, man! Just tell me where the drugs and the recordings you took are and we'll tell Martinez that you cooperated."

"Cooperated, are you serious? You just got done telling me that I can't fuck with his cartel and live to tell about it and now you want to tell me he'll go easy on me cause I _cooperated_? That man will kill me the first chance he gets. I'm not stupid Jones! The drugs and the tapes are on their way to those Feds who killed your boys earlier today. It's over. Miguel Martinez is over!" It was obvious from the conversation they were overhearing that Finch's revenge plan had not gone according to plan. Tony chanced another look into the window and this time the large man blocking his view, Beefy he named him, shifted and he finally had a view of Simon Finch, or at least what was left of him. The marine was tied to a chair and the tall, lanky form of Darius Jones was standing over him with the barrel of his pistol pressed into the side of his head. Finch's face was bloodied. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he was leaking blood steadily from a deep gash on the side of his face. Red tricked down from the torn flesh and had painted a river of crimson down his neck, collecting in a dark pool on his shoulder. Tony felt a phantom pain in his own jaw as he watched Darius Jones pistol whip Finch hard across the face.

Tony pulled back quickly when Jones started to turn in his direction.

"There are three of them. Finch is tied to a chair, Darius Jones is in there too and he brought a friend. Big guy, gun tucked into the back of his pants, but it's not Martinez. Finch is pretty beat up." he explained low and quick.

"I think our best chance would be to surprise them," Ziva suggested, speaking barely above a whisper. "The door is open, yes?" Tony nodded. "Then it is our best option."

Tony and Ziva both turned to Gibbs who nodded his approval. Plan agreed on, Gibbs took position in front of Tony and the world stood still for a moment. The anticipation of what they were about to attempt was churning in Tony's veins and he tried to find the calm focused center he knew he was going to need. He took comfort in the agents that flanked either side of him and felt an overwhelming feeling of affection for Gibbs and Ziva flood his system, the absent McGee, too. Either of these two agents would risk their lives for him and he held tight to the strength that knowledge gave him. They all had been in situations like this before and each of them had survived. He focused on the faces of people he had saved in the past, his trophy case of happy endings until his thoughts settled on one image that gave him the rage and the focus he needed to do this last thing. The memory was of Michael and Tia Finch and of how he had found them all those days ago. The case may have evolved into a convoluted plot of Admirals, drugs, cartels and gangs, but the fundamental truth was a little boy and his mother had been murdered in cold blood and for no reason that made sense. They were innocent bystanders to other men's evil and they had paid the ultimate price. The men in the house they were about to storm were responsible for it all, all the sleepless nights and all the broken bones. They had turned his mentor into a torturer, torn a family asunder and put the lives of those he cared for most in danger with their actions and now justice was so close he felt he could put out a hand and touch her robes. He gripped the Sig in his hand a little tighter and watched for the silent communication from his boss. The group took a collective breath, equipment and nerves were adjusted and Gibbs gave the signal.

Quicker than Tony had seen their team leader move in a long time, Gibbs darted out from behind the house and reached for the door. Beefy was still standing with his back to them and only started turning when the door was almost half way open. Putting all his weight into the motion, Gibbs had the door thrown wide in a fraction of a second.

"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!" Three voices chimed out as one and Tony noted the puzzled bewilderment crossing Darius Jones' face at their sudden and unexpected appearance. Gibbs went for the muscle first but as soon as he laid a hand on him, Beefy was turning around with more speed than Tony would have believed him capable of. He did not expect the 2nd gun he saw clutched in the man's huge hands.

"Another gun!" Ziva yelled, seeing the weapon just as Tony did. Gibbs took aim to bring the man down but a shot from Jones that went wide shattered the glass behind them and everyone dove for cover at the same time. Gibbs made it into the kitchen and behind a small island while Ziva took cover behind a couch. Beefy and Jones were down the hallway in a flash, their shots going wild in the small house as they tried to cover their escape. Tony realized suddenly that he had nowhere to go but back out the way they had come and he threw himself out into the backyard and to safety. His side twinged slightly, reminding him that he was still bruised, but he didn't have the time to worry about it and pulled the radio from his vest to quickly hail the tactical team. Captain Cooper and his men were close and Tony gave them the details of what was going down as quickly as he could before resecuring the radio and returning his attention back to the house. He put a cautious head through the doorway but had to pull back quickly when a bullet whizzed past his head. He swore he could feel the wind of its passing on his face. He was getting too old for this shit.

"Give it up, Jones. There's nowhere to go!" He heard Gibbs yell out and then the sound of answering gunfire. The shooting stopped as quickly as it had begun and all was silent for the moment. Unable to see what was happening was maddening and Tony risked a look back inside. When no one shot at him he quickly surveyed the room, only pulling back when he saw the barrel of a gun emerge from the hallway. He was stuck. There was no way for him to reach Gibbs or Ziva without giving Darius and his man an easy target. He swore out loud and tried to think of a way he could get in there and get to his team.

"The house is surrounded, Jones!" If Tony's heart hadn't been in his throat he might have laughed at the clichéd line. "Give up, that's the only way this ends pretty."

"Man, fuck you! Fuckin' feds, thinkin' you know everything. There isn't anybody outside and I'm not coming without a fight." With those words Jones started shooting again and the growing frustration of not being in there to help his team was infuriating Tony. When the firing stopped and Jones retreated back down the hall to do who knew what, he looked around the wall again and made eye contact with Gibbs. Tony signed his intention to join the senior agent behind the island. It wasn't ideal, the island was small and there wouldn't be much room for the two of them behind it but Tony couldn't take being stranded alone in the back yard any longer and reaching Ziva's position behind the couch would leave him exposed too long. Gibbs signed for him to make his move quickly and with Jones and his muscle still hidden down the hall, he dove into the house and made for the kitchen.

It should have worked. It _would_ have worked had Beefy not chosen that exact moment to round the corner with an impressive looking semi-automatic pointed directly at his head. His calculated risk had backfired and he was caught like a deer in the headlights with nowhere to go. Time seemed to stop again. In a span of immeasurable moments he felt aware of everything around him and wondered if the feeling was perhaps his version of the preverbal flash of his life before his eyes.

"Tony!" Ziva called.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs bellowed

"Hero," Beefy laughed and squeezed the trigger.

Tony closed his eyes and thought of his mother. Her smiling face and a long forgotten memory of sunshine and a beach next to crystal clear ocean came suddenly and unbidden.

So this is what happened before you died.

An explosion sounded in his head and he was thrown not back like he expected from the force of a bullet, but to the side as someone crashed him hard into the hardwood floor. He heard rather than felt his shoulder dislocate then a white hot pain exploded along the entire left side of his body. Breathing was suddenly impossible.

"DiNozzo? DiNozzo!" He was on his back. Someone was beside him, shaking his good shoulder and their words were coming through fuzzy and muffled. He opened his eyes and Gibbs was above him. "God, Tony, are you alright?"

All he could do was nod. He was alright, if alive could be construed as alright. He wasn't shot and he wasn't dead. Cooper and his men had busted through the front door and the deafening noise he had heard was the report from one of their weapons. The weapon that had saved his life. Beefy lay in a pool of blood where he had fallen.

Gibbs was helping him sit up and his vision kept going in and out of focus. He blinked several times and finally his lungs began to work. He pulled in as much air as the shriveled little organs would allow and coughed pathetically. He realized with embarrassment that he was leaning against Gibbs for support and the team leader's hand was moving in soothing circles on his back as he repeated the order to breath over and over again. The touchy feely thing wasn't something they did.

Tony pulled himself up into a sitting position and tentatively tested the pain in his ribs. It had receded to a manageable level but still lingered. The real pain was in his shoulder which Gibbs inadvertently jarred when he began helping Tony to his feet. Tony couldn't help but cry out and shut his eyes against the grinding pain.

"I'm sorry!" Tony wanted to remind him of Rule #6 but he was too busy trying to breathe through the pain in his shoulder and deal with the ever present throb at his side.

"DiNozzo!"

"Yeah boss?" He hadn't realized Gibbs was still talking to him. His senses were still trying to catch up with what had just happened.

"I said, Ziva's going to pop your shoulder back in. Okay?" Tony shook his head and tried to dislodge some of the fuzz.

"Okay." Gibbs seemed reluctant to leave his side but once Ziva made her way over to them, he was called away by Captain Cooper. Darius Jones had barricaded himself in the back bedroom and was refusing to come out.

"Are you ready?" Ziva was asking him and he realized he'd lost focus again.

"Do it." He'd had dislocated shoulders before but nothing could prepare him for the mind numbing pain of popping the joint back into place. Ziva was no nursemaid either and gave him no warning when she seized his shoulder and wrenched it back into its proper place. He couldn't help the moan that escaped his lips but the pain eased significantly once his shoulder joint was reconstructed. If anything, the pain of the procedure had cleared his head and brought everything back into focus.

"Okay?" She asked and he nodded.

"I'm fine, go help Gibbs." He could tell that she was anxious to join Gibbs and it didn't take much convincing to get her to leave his side and join the others down the hall. When she had gone he tentatively experimented with the joint and found he still had a pretty good range of motion but the event had his stomach rolling and he made it outside just in time to puke in the landscaping beside the sliding glass door. He was glad no one was around to see him empty his insides which continued to protest as his mind caught up to the moment and he replayed the last minute or so back again. He realized suddenly, the nausea threatening again, just how close he had come to the big finish. He put a shaky head to his forehead and wiped at the sweat beading there. This day had been one for the record books and he wondered how he was still holding himself together. Duct tape and some of Gibbs' wood glue, perhaps? The bruised ribs that wouldn't quit were one thing, but now he had to deal with a dislocated shoulder that would likely bother him for days. When this was all said and done, he was going to sleep for weeks.

A commotion from inside pulled Tony from his thoughts. He'd missed all the action, but that was okay by him. He was useless with his arm anyway and would have just been in the way in the small hallway to the back bedrooms. He walked to the sliding glass door and stood in its busted out frame wiping his mouth. The tactical team along with Ziva and Gibbs were marching a subdued and cuffed Darius Jones towards the destroyed front door and out towards the gathering crowd of neighbors and local police. Gibbs hung back and radioed McGee as promised and then was on the phone to Ducky, telling him of the new crime scene he was needed at. Tony knew there were things he needed to be doing, finding a sling for his aching arm high up on the list, but being alone in the house once Gibbs had moved out into the throng of gathered gapers was comforting. Too many things were going on in his brain at once and he needed silence to sort them out before he crashed, and hard. The dead bodies were his only company.

There would be two corpses for Ducky to take care of once he and Palmer arrived. Jones' bodyguard was dead and so to was their ill-fated Private First Class. Simon Finch had been struck by a stray bullet sometime in the melee. Tony felt something akin to relief as his eyes roamed over the broken body of the Private. The man had lost his wife, son and father in the span of a week and Tony could only imagine what it would have been like for Finch to live with that for the rest of his life. Especially when it was his own actions that had brought about their deaths. He shuddered as Gloria Finch's unfortunate face swam into his thoughts.

Finch's death had saved him from a lifetime of grief but it also had lost Tony and the team any chance they had of retrieving the evidence the Private had gathered. His family had died for the information he obtained and now there was nothing to show for it and Miguel Martinez would likely never be found. The frustration of it all was enough to have him putting his fist through the wall but he resisted the pull to do violence.

"Get a grip, DiNozzo," he said into the empty house. He'd spent enough time on thoughts so with shoulder and side throbbing he started for the front door.

The first thing he registered was a coldness on his face. Next was the weightless feeling of being yanked off his feet and pulled back bodily through the sliding glass door. The feeling was strange, not unlike the weightless feeling of a rollercoaster's first drop and his brain struggled to make sense of what was happening. He let out a cry of surprise but it was smothered by the icy hand clamped tightly over his lips. Instinct kicked in and Tony began to struggle violently against his unseen attacker, lashing out with everything he had left. The figure, unable to control Tony with only one free arm, dropped the hand covering his mouth to wrap two arms around Tony's torso in an effort to subdue him. In the process Tony's injured shoulder was jarred and the movement had Tony seeing stars and crying out loudly in pain. The loud cry had the unseen figure turning him and he was slammed hard against the siding. The angry face of Miguel Martinez swam into focus in the fading light. The cartel leader landed a quick but vicious punch to Tony's windpipe, silencing his calls for help before he could even voice them. Air was suddenly a precious commodity as he coughed and gagged, trying to pull oxygen down his abused throat. He fell to his knees on the ground and before he could recover Martinez was dragging him towards the woods at the back of the property. Tony was too focused on pulling air into his lungs to put up much of a fight. His brain was screaming at him to make noise, let someone know that he was in trouble, but his airway was compromised and black dots were forming in his field of vision, survival stealing the only focus he had left. It was all he could do to keep himself calm enough to pull air into his starved lungs. He was slammed again into something hard and realized he was back in a familiar clearing. Full circle indeed.

Martinez was flitting back and forth from the tree line to where Tony sat on the ground against the rock struggling for breath between wheezes. When Tony started to get more of his senses back online, the drug cartel leader was in front of him and wielding a knife.

"Finch's stash, where is it?" Tony's mind flashed to an earlier interrogation and he prayed that his fate wouldn't mirror that of the Angel gang member they had questioned. An explosion of pain at his cheek had his head knocking backwards and against the rock, the stars and black dots he'd just gotten under control back with a vengeance in his vision. Martinez had hit him hard across the face with his fist and he could feel the split skin and the wetness leaking from the gash Martinez had opened. He shook his head a little to clear his vision which was clearly a wrong move and he slumped over to be sick in the grass. The movement enraged Martinez who delivered kick after merciless kick to Tony's abdomen. Weak and with no way to defend himself, Tony pulled himself into the closest thing to a fetal position he could manage until Martinez finally stopped. The gang member hauled him roughly back into a sitting position and flashed the knife he still held in front of Tony's face.

"I know Finch had a bunch of shit he was going to hand over to you feds. WHERE IS IT!"

"I don't know." The reply came out raspy low and it was the only one he could give. His mind was too far gone to lie even though the truth was likely going to get him killed. His body tensed for the punishment Martinez would most certainly inflict on him for the answer. The blade Martinez held was lowered, beyond Tony's wavering field of vision and a breath stealing flash of white hot pain erupted in his gut as Martinez slid the blade of the knife into his flesh. Tony couldn't hold back his screams.

"Where is the evidence, Fed. I'm not going to ask you again." Tony fought for breath, his throat raw and gut protesting with throbbing agony on every inhalation and every beat of his heart. He couldn't answer. Martinez pulled up roughly on the blade then yanked it away and Tony felt his mind fracture and pull away from the searing, agonizing pain as best it could. His hands went up to weakly try and push Martinez away but the man only laughed at his feeble attempt to protect himself. Unconsciousness was not far away, the blackness pulling him farther and farther away from the pain.

"He never gave us anything," he heard someone say.

"Well then I guess I ain't got no use for you then, do I?" His mind was trying to tell him something, a primal instinct to flee rising up in him so suddenly he almost made to move but then the searing pain was back and this time his mind really did take him away and he dreamed again about his mother.

* * *

_Author's note: I'll try to update again soon. Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the latest installment. I meant what I said at the beginning of all this: I don't own them, but boy do I like to make them suffer. Enjoy!_


	13. Chapter 13

_He uses both hands to push through the door and a desperate pair of eyes meets his. He has no answers for the questioning gaze and mercifully it falls away when he indicates so. The air in the room is frigid as if the hospital has done it on purpose to accent the icy grip of fear already present in the space. He finishes his entry into the room and feels Ziva enter behind him. He's immediately to the duty nurse who asks him to kindly see to the agent pacing the waiting room floor and see that he does not disrupt the quiet hospital atmosphere again. He doesn't understand the request but he doesn't dare approach the pacing agent either. There are special gloves used to handle Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and he's not privy to where they are kept. That lot falls to Dr. Mallard who has not yet arrived._

_The good doctor is still on his way from NCIS and has left him alone with two wounded federal agents. How does one care for such creatures? Ziva he sees has taken a seat and Gibbs continues his circuit round the room. Perhaps the whispers he heard on the way up about the man who put his fist through a wall were about the pacing agent. His eyes fall on a wrapped right hand, the whiteness of the bandage already spotting with blood. He curses his boss in his head._

_This is no place for Jimmy Palmer. His place is in the morgue, not dealing with the living as evidenced by his innate ability to take words of comfort and of sentiment and turn them into bumbling, baffling speeches that wouldn't calm a child. There's no manual he can read for dealing with a team who's just lost one of their own._

_No, not lost. Just misplaced for the time being._

_Dr. Mallard would know what to do. He has the play book on putting them back together and anchoring them to earth._

_He contemplates where to sit after the nurse explains that she has no information on the agent he's inquiring about. She does not bother to ask if he's family or not and he bets it's because Gibbs has given her his views on that stupid rule. He knows if he catches Gibbs' attention again, the questions that passed between them in silence when he first arrived might then be voiced and he can't trust himself to say the right thing. If he sits next to Ziva he's taking his life in his hands, unsure of how the volatile Israeli will react to his own home grown form of comfort. He decides instead on a chair that gives him both a good view of the room where he can remain detached yet still act as buffer between Gibbs and the nurse if needed. He's proud of himself for thinking of it. _

_When the waiting room door opens again he's looking into the face of his savior. Ducky arrives and his presence brings with it an instant calm. It's an effect Jimmy knows he'll never come to master. He's too unsure, too bumbling to command such a thing._

_He's saved. They're all of them saved and he tries not to be jealous when Ducky makes a beeline for Gibbs without a second glance his way. He lets the jealousy melt away from his thoughts when he reminds himself where he is and of what has transpired. Gibbs is slowly crumbling, he's been watching the process ever since the scene in the tree's. No, Gibbs needs Ducky more._

_Tragedy, he's been told, is supposed to bring people together, but in the hushed cold of the waiting room, he feels more like an outsider than ever and he tries to ignore the revelation._


	14. Chapter 14

The Quantico Virginia police department had been called in for the second time that day to shots fired and this time the honor of placating them fell to Gibbs. The police chief himself had come down and was not pleased to find NCIS at the center of it all again. As Gibbs dealt with the irate man, he tried to rein in the anger that was pulsing through his veins. He wasn't really angry at having to deal with the local PD, he'd dealt with his fair share of police chief's in his day and knew what to say to get them to back off. What he was really pissed about, when he let himself examine his feelings that deep, was how the day had ended.

Private Simon Finch was dead and with him the location of all the evidence he had supposedly accumulated. How was the cold corpse lying in wait for his medical examiner back in the house supposed to give them what they needed to shut down the DC Angels and bring a halt to the Knights Templar's reach in the DC area? No, the evidence was gone, beyond his reach, and Gibbs was fuming. From the very beginning the case had done nothing but poke holes in his finely tuned exterior and Gibbs felt a bit like a boat on an ocean, being tossed about and battered against the rocks. A child was dead. A mother was dead and in the end, they might not have enough to bring down the originations responsible for their deaths. Then, to add insult to injury, he was going to have to tell the former Mrs. Admiral Finch that her entire family had been decimated in one fell swoop and he had nothing to show her for it except a tightlipped Jones who was already crying lawyer. There wasn't an empty loading bay around to help him get answers this time. The conversation with Gloria Finch was inevitable and there was nothing he could do to change that fact, much to his chagrin.

Gibbs tried not to lash out as the police chief jabbered on at him about professional courtesy and jurisdiction and all other manner of bullshit. Ziva must have picked up on his increasingly darkening mood because she stepped in between the argument and asked the Chief if he would be willing to aid them in their investigation instead of hindering it. Her interference had the Chief off and running on another longwinded diatribe, but she was able to maneuver him away from Gibbs. Gibbs threw her an appreciative look and walked away quickly. He pulled out his cell and called Ducky again to check on his ME's ETA. The sooner Ducky showed up, the sooner he could get his team out of there and back to NCIS. With the death of Finch and Jones in custody, there was a lot of work to be done. The doctor picked up on the first ring.

"Ah, Jethro. Two calls in one night. Everything alright over there?"

"I've pissed off the entire Quantico police force but other than that, everything's fine."

"One of your many talents, I dare say." The doctor joked good-naturedly.

"Are you and Palmer close? I could really use you here Duck."

"We just left the base and are headed your way now. With Palmer's driving, I expect we'll be there sooner rather than later." Gibbs could imagine the look his ME was giving his assistant. "Everyone there unscathed?"

"Tony dislocated his shoulder but other than that, no injuries on our end. Finch is dead, though."

"Poor boy and how sad for dear Mrs. Finch. Did you correct Anthony's shoulder?"

"Ziva did, I think" Gibbs scanned the milling pockets of people searching for his agent. He couldn't see Tony anywhere.

"Well, tell him I'll take a look at it for him when I get there. We're only a few miles out."

"You got it. Thanks, Duck." Gibbs didn't wait to hear if Ducky returned the goodbye; he was too busy scanning the faces of the police and military personnel around him looking for the familiar face he was searching for. When his sweep came up empty again, he was starting to get mad. He needed Tony out here and helping with the scene. It wasn't like him to be absent. His team was a well ordered machine, Gibbs had seen to that personally, and they all knew what was expected of them before and after a crime scene. For Tony to be skirting his duties, well that was tantamount to high treason in Gibbs' book. He stomped over and pulled Ziva from the police chief in mid conversation.

"Have you seen Tony?"

"He is not with you?" She asked, conducting her own scan of the people around them.

"No. You set his shoulder, right?"

"I did then came to assist you with Jones at the rear of the house. I did not see him after." Gibbs started for the house, anger building up again so that a sharp admonishment was ready on his lips for when he reentered the house and found Tony. He did not expect to find the home empty with no sign of his agent.

"Damn it! Tony, where are you?' He yelled, heading down the hall to the back bedrooms. "If you're using the can in this house, I'm going to be smacking the back of your head for the rest of your career!" Nothing. There was no response and a quick look into all the back rooms produced no Tony. The anger in his gut was quickly turning to concern. Ziva met him back near the destroyed front door. Her search had also come up empty.

"Where the hell did he go?"

"Gibbs, something is wrong. This is not right." She was right and his concern had reached its peak and was now threatening to turn into panic. He didn't let it show however and schooled his features and vented the panic into action.

"Ziva, get outside and let everyone know what's going on. Get whoever you can to start searching the perimeter of the house." The former Mossad agent quickly agreed and was out the door in a flash and Gibbs surveyed the room trying to imagine where Tony might have gone. The only access points out of the house were the front door and the shattered sliding glass door at the back. It was the sliding glass door that pulled his attention so he stepped out into the fresh air and surveyed the ground. They were going to lose light soon and he hurriedly searched near the base of the door for any sign his agent had been there. He spotted Tony's abandoned Sig only a few seconds later. There was only one reason Tony would have dropped his weapon and left it where it lie. Gibbs' stomach bottomed out and his eyes frantically searched the shadowy backyard. There was nothing to be seen.

Shit.

Ziva pounded around the corner of the house as Gibbs donned a glove and picked up the Sig from the ground. A look of shared discontent passed between them but Gibbs refused to believe the worst or even allow the worst case scenario to play out in his mind. Tony was okay. No one dared mess with the members of his team... but wasn't that platitude really just bullshit? No matter how hard Gibbs tried, there was still evil in the world and it constantly tried to get its claws into the agents he'd spent years cultivating and growing to care for. Standing in the evening light, not knowing where Tony was or if he was okay, Gibbs kicked himself for not showing the agent more often how much he really cared. Then there was the added frustration of the involvement of a Mexican drug cartel in their lives. A drug cartel that was known for severing heads and killing all who got in their way. And if anyone had gotten in heir way, it was Gibbs, Tony, Ziva and Tim. How could he ever hope to protect them from such terrible men?

Dialoguing his fears internally wasn't helping Tony at the moment so he pushed them aside and wracked his brain for the next logical step. His infamous gut had been falling down on the job as of late. If they were back at NCIS in the safety of the bullpen all it would take was a look and he'd have three intelligent agents firing off ideas on what to do next. As it stood now he only had himself and Ziva and she appeared to be just as uncertain as he was and trying just as hard as he not to show it. The tree line beyond the property offered cover and a good place to hide and Gibbs decided they would start there. He remembered the smuggler's hole Tony and McGee had found Finch's drug stash in. It was as good a place as any to start looking. Finally finding direction, Gibbs quickly bagged Tony's discarded gun and tossed it inside the house in the direction of Simon Finch's body. The CSIs would find it and see that it was properly cataloged.

"Ziva, let's try for the trees." He unholstered his gun and made for the back of the property, Ziva following closely behind with her own gun drawn. He could hear far off voices shouting Tony's name as the tactical team turned search party and he contemplated calling out himself. Before he could try, he spotted a figure crashing through the brush near the tree line. The darkly dressed figure emerged cautiously a few yards ahead of them.

"Martinez!" Ziva exclaimed loudly, instantly recognizing the leader of the Knights Templar before Gibbs could even focus on the man's face. Realizing who they were, Martinez immediately took back off into the woods with Ziva hot in his heals. Gibbs knew he would be worthless in a foot chase but crashed off after the two fleeing figures anyway. He would not lose another team member to these animals and Miguel Martinez had proven himself a merciless foe. Ziva was an excellent agent, former Mossad and built for these situations and he shouldn't be worrying about her, but evil had a habit of surprising him and insinuating itself into his life and he couldn't risk leaving Ziva alone with the dangerous drug cartel leader.

Gibbs tried his best to maneuver through the trees but the terrain was treacherous and one particular root had his knee twisting painfully. Luckily it was nothing more than a little twinge of pain and he continued on until he came to a small clearing. He stopped for a moment and focused his hearing, trying to hear Ziva and the fleeing Martinez but all was quiet around him. He was about to move on but something white near a rock at the edge of the clearing caught his eye.

The white was glinting even in the weak light that was still managing to make its way through the trees. He trained the barrel of his gun at the whiteness, sure that Miguel Martinez was hiding behind the large outcropping of rock protruding from the forest floor. His heart began to flutter in his chest. The tables were suddenly turned and Ziva, the backup he now desperately needed, was nowhere to be seen and he was alone in the clearing with the psychopath. He reminded himself quickly of his skills and how they made the situation routine. He knew this. He could do this in his sleep and it was imperative that they bring Martinez down. Gibbs pulled on old training, imagining the cowering cartel leader as one of the cardboard cutouts he'd shot at with ease in his exercises as a sniper in training. He would make quick work of the bastard but he had to hurry. Tony was still out there somewhere.

Gibbs crouched low and tried to move forward without noise. Complete silence was impossible with the undergrowth and he was sure Martinez knew he was there. He was surprised that the cartel leader hadn't made a break for it or at least tried to shoot at him. Gibbs was exposed out in the open clearing, the safety of the trees far behind him and his gun his only leverage. If Martinez did decide to make a break for it, Gibbs would have only one chance to bring the cartel leader down. There were any number of trees nearby that Martinez could dive behind and plenty more to cover an escape. Gibbs realized with a sinking feeling that, if Martinez was able to dodge his bullets and make a break for it, by himself Gibbs would likely be unable to stop his escape. If he didn't work fast, there was the possibility that Martinez would get away and he couldn't let that happen. Not with Tony missing and not with the countless dead bodies Martinez had to answer for. Gibbs steeled himself. He was good with a gun, better than most, but he wasn't perfect. Gibbs slouched forward cautiously.

He was seconds away from charging, hoping desperately that the cartel leader wasn't armed, when the unmistakable sound of two gunshot echoed in the air around him. It came from his right and was quickly followed by one more that sent birds scattering from the trees. Gibbs paused and held his breath but nothing in the clearing moved. The gunshots didn't make sense. If Martinez was here in the clearing with him, then who the hell was firing? Unless...

Gibbs closed the gap between himself and the rock with gun at the ready. He was close enough now to find that the white he was seeing couldn't possibly be a person crouching down. The rock gave the illusion of sticking up straight out of the ground, but in reality it was protruding from a small rise in the earth of the forest floor. There was no room for a crouched figure to hide, only enough room to slightly obscure a discarded NCIS Kevlar vest. His heart skipped a beat and he picked up the vest with shaking hands.

"DiNozzo!?" He called, scanning the forest floor for any sign of his agent. "Tony, damn it, answer me!" He'd spent all day, hell all week trying to control panic every time it clenched in his gut, but when he looked down and realized the vest in his hand was stained with blood, and lots of it, he was choking on it and his heart rate skyrocketed.

"DINOZZO!" The bellow that escaped from his lips was borderline hysterical and Gibbs took off into the woods. He headed in the direction of the gunshots, searching every inch of forest floor for some sign of Tony and calling out his name every few steps. There was no sign. Nothing hinted that the agent had been there and no noise permeated the fog of his panic. He practically fell over Ziva in his frantic search.

"Ziva, I found..." he was going to tell her about the vest, let her see that he was half crazed with worry and in need of her ever present cool calm to ground him. It was a testament to how every out of control he felt that he was contemplating reveling to his agent just what a state he was in. Ziva, however, was standing over the prone figure of Miguel Martinez and appeared to need grounding of her own. The fallen cartel member had two shots to the upper chest that were slowly being surrounded by circles of crimson and a third shot to the head almost directly at the center of his forehead. An abandoned semi-automatic weapon lay a few inches from an outstretched hand. Ziva stood over the corpse and was breathing heavily as if fighting for control. Gibbs, forgetting his own loss of control for a moment, came up beside her and placed a soft hand on one of her trembling forearms.

"Ziva," was all he said and her confused eyes met his. It was unnerving to see Ziva this way. He'd witnessed the state only a handful of times. She had looked at him like that after she'd shot Andrew Hoffman in that warehouse nearly six years ago. He pushed her arm down and to the side, taking the aim off the corpse of Miguel Martinez and pointing her gun harmlessly at the ground. The action seemed to pull her out of the confusion.

"Gibbs?"

"What happened, Ziva?" He asked quietly, not wanting to hinder her return to calm.

"He was running, I chased him, managed to keep up, but he turned on me. I got him twice in the chest and brought him down but then he started talking. Oh god, Gibbs."

"It's okay, Ziva."

"No, you don't understand, Gibbs! He started telling me that he... that Tony was..."

"He said something about, Tony?" He hadn't realized it but he had taken Ziva's shoulders in his hands and was shaking her slightly. He made himself let go. "I can't find him, Ziva. Tell me what Martinez said."

"He told me what he did... about Tony's screams... how he begged. I couldn't listen anymore, Gibbs. I... I shot again..." Gibbs understood what Ziva was trying to say, that she had delivered the head shot to Martinez in the heat of the moment but they didn't have time to worry about that now. Martinez had done something to Tony.

"Think Ziva! Did he give you any hint as to where he left Tony?"

"Nothing. All he would tell me was that we'd never find him." Gibbs swore loudly and stalked away from Ziva. He pulled his radio out and relayed to the tactical team all that had happened and was assured by the voice on the other end that all available officers and tactical team members were on their way to help search the woods for Tony. Gibbs quickly inquired after Ducky and if he'd arrived on scene yet, but the voice on the other end of the radio told him they'd halted all traffic into the crime scene and had asked Dr. Mallard and his assistant to please wait until the scene could be secured again. He couldn't argue with the logic but knew it had probably pissed Ducky off to no end.

Ziva joined him again and this time seemed to be back in control of herself. He realized a focused calm had also descended upon himself. The time for panic was over. They needed clear heads to track down their missing friend if Martinez' last words were to be believed.

"Let's start back towards the Finch house and see if we can find him before we meet up with the tactical team.

"What about Martinez" Ziva asked, not looking back over at the corpse.

"He'll be fine there for now." The Israeli nodded and they took off back towards the Finch property. The sun would soon be gone and storm clouds were gathering in the east. Gibbs thought he could almost feel the slightest tremor in the ground beneath his feet from the thunder off in the distance and the wind picked up in the trees. The thought of Tony out in the woods bleeding and exposed had him picking up his pace and his scans of the forest floor around him. Several yards away to the left, Ziva was doing the same thing.

They were finding no sign of Tony and would soon meet up with the search party he could now hear off in the distance, calling Tony's name. Gibbs was getting more frustrated by the minute and ran through everything he knew about Miguel Martinez.

The man was a cold blooded killer who would destroy anything and anyone in his path so it was likely that where ever Tony was, he was in bad shape. Martinez had most likely been hiding in the woods when they had arrived at the house tonight. If the evidence that Simon Finch had collected was so dangerous to him, why hadn't the drug cartel leader been in the house interrogating Finch himself? He'd killed a six year old boy and his mother trying to get to Finch yet he had left Darius Jones to question him and had been out in the woods...

The thought hit him like a freight train. What would have brought Martinez out into the trees? Knowledge of a smugglers hole conveniently hidden in the woods near the backyard of the Finch house.

Gibbs took off at a run and yelled for Ziva to follow. He made a man dash in he approximate direction of the hole, praying that his memory of the scene photos and Tony and McGee's own descriptions were accurate enough for him to find it in the gathering dark. When he thought he'd found its approximate location, he fell to his knees in the brush and began feeling around for the door. Ziva immediately picked up on what he was after and knelt down a few feet away to help search. Gibbs' heart was pounding in his chest. The smuggler's hole was nearby, he was sure of it, but part of him didn't want to find the opening in the ground. He was terrified of what he might find there. Tony had been a magnet for disaster the entire case but only because, Gibbs realized with a sudden wave of some emotion he couldn't describe, the younger agent had poured himself into every aspect of the case. He'd been there with Gibbs to visit the Admiral, he'd been with McGee at their first encounter with Finch, he'd been behind the glass as Gibbs interrogated the Admiral's wife and he had been there in the loading bay when Gibbs had had to do the unthinkable. Tony's unwavering loyalty hit Gibbs hard and had his eyes misting and his hands moving all the quicker. What felt like an eternity later, Ziva was yelling for him.

"Gibbs! Gibbs! Over here!" He was on his feet before he knew it and ran to Ziva just as she started to pull the heavy door up from its hiding place under the brush. He bent down to help her and the heavy door was flung back. The both bit back strangled cries of rage at what they had uncovered. Tony's body had been manhandled into the small space and Gibbs' heart feared the worst. A cry crawled up the back of his throat but he refused to release it.

'Not yet,' he told himself inside his head. 'Not until you have proof.'

Ziva had her hands on Tony in an instant, checking desperately at his carotid for a pulse. Gibbs held his breath and waited for his proof.

"There's a pulse but it's very weak." This time he let a little strangled cry of relief release with the breath he'd been holding.

"Gibbs, we've got to get him out of this hole." He fell to his knees beside Ziva, ignoring his protesting knee as it screamed at him for the abuse. Working together the two agents carefully unfolded Tony from the small space and tried not to do him further injury. As far as Gibbs could tell Tony's left leg was broken but unlike McGee's similar injury, Tony's break had the bone protruding grotesquely through the skin of his lower leg. His left arm looked to be broken as well and while it stuck out an unnatural angle, no bones had pierced the skin. Realizing he'd forgotten to radio for help, Gibbs pulled out his radio and hailed whoever was listening once they'd laid Tony carefully out on the ground. He could see the Finch house through the trees but no one was around them. The tactical team had begun their search of the woods far to the left of their location.

"AGENT DOWN! NEED AN AMBULANCE NOW! WE'RE TO THE WEST OF THE HOUSE NEAR THE TREE LINE! AGENT DOWN!" He barely registered the reply that crackled through as his attention was pulled back to Tony. He absently noted that the hand he'd used to radio for help was stained red and that the radio had slipped slimily from his hand to land in the grass beside him.

Ziva had pulled a knife from her pocket and began cutting away the black fabric of Tony's t-shirt from his torso. Gibbs almost wanted to stop her from pulling back the loose flaps of shirt when she'd finished cutting, unable to deal with the images his brain was flashing of what they might find there. He didn't stop her though and as she peeled back the fabric from the congealed blood that covered Tony's torso, he couldn't avert his eyes from the trenches carved into his agents flesh. The worst was low to the belly where a long and jagged deep slash was seeping copious amounts of Tony's blood out into the brush beneath him. Gibbs hands instinctively shot out to put pressure on the wound while Ziva's hands went to other wounds his shaky hand's couldn't reach.

The war zone that was Tony's chest washed a wave of nausea over Gibbs and he struggled to keep the sickness at bay. He couldn't afford the distraction and tried to blank his mind to what it was seeing. It was an easy process for him when the victim beneath his hands was someone he didn't know, but this was Tony and the emotions warring inside his chest would not quiet. The sight of his agent, bleeding to death amongst the tress, was pulling such strong emotions from him, some he never knew himself capable of feeling. He flitted from one to the next in quick succession. Rage, hopelessness, pain, confusion, anger, uselessness, all rolling around in his chest in a fight for dominance. He tried as best he could to ignore the battle within him and find his focus.

Their hands were going up and down at an alarming rate with the quick and shallow inhalations Tony was taking. Gibbs eyes met Ziva's and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Tony needed an ambulance and he needed it now. Their hands would not long hold back the inevitable. He'd lost so much blood. Gibbs increased the pressure he was putting on Tony's wounds and the movement pulled a moan from Tony. It was the first sound he'd made since they'd found him and suddenly his eyes were slitting open.

"Tony?" His agents eyes were unfocused and glazed over.

"Tony!" even his name wouldn't bring the younger agent's eyes to Gibbs who finally issued a sharp "DiNozzo!" which snapped Tony's slatted eyes to him.

"m'sorry boss..."

"No, don't talk," Gibbs said quietly, trying to hold his agent's wavering gaze. He didn't understand how Tony was conscious, but he wasn't about to question it. It was a relief to see Tony's open eyes even if they were unfocused and confused.

"… really… screwed…up. Got…k'napped… like a damn…. rookie." Tony was stopping on every other word or so to draw in oxygen. Gibbs tried not to flinch at the rivulet of blood that had started running from the side of his agent's mouth. He dared not move his hands from the wounds on Tony's torso to wipe the little river away. Ziva whispered low, trying to sooth him.

"It's all right, Tony."

Gibbs barely registered that the first of the promised officers had arrived beside him. One of the men let out an audible gasp when he reached them. Ziva gave the man a sharp look but Gibbs didn't dare break his eye contact with Tony in case... God forbid, it was the last time he could speak to his agent.

"Martinez wanted... the evidence."

"We got it covered, DiNozzo, try not to talk."

"Knife… How bad… Boss?"

"Where is that fucking ambulance!?" Gibbs bellowed, watching as Tony's eyes rolled up into his head before Gibbs had the chance to answer his question.

"Come on, Tony. Don't do this." He would have shaken the fallen agent if his hands hadn't been preoccupied elsewhere.

"There was a massive pile up on I-95." An officer said to him, getting on his knees beside Tony's head and placing the mask from a portable oxygen tank over the unconscious agents face. "Ambulance is 10 minutes out." Gibbs' didn't know where on earth they had found the oxygen tank and he didn't care.

"My ME is close, someone radio Dr. Mallard. He's got equipment." He listened as someone unseen behind acquiesced to his request.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Gibbs was not supposed to be here holding Tony's insides in, sickened by the blood welling up from between his fingers and through Ziva's. He risked a glance from Tony's face to hers and realized she was crying. He'd never often seen Ziva David cry, but tears were tracking down her cheeks and she was murmuring softly over DiNozzo in Hebrew. Gibbs looked back at Tony and noticed a pale tinge to the agents skin that hadn't been there before. He felt his own tears threaten mutinously and he prayed to a god he no longer believed that his ME would get there soon.

Kneeling down on the forest floor, keeping his hands clamped over bleeding wounds, Gibbs felt a peculiar feeling descend upon him. It was a feeling that he often got when he said goodbye to someone he'd connected with on a case or in his life. Zach Tanner, Maddie Tyler, Hollis... It was a feeling of something coming to a close, something he didn't want to end and Gibbs felt words start and didn't try to stop them.

"You do not die today, DiNozzo." Gibbs choked out as Tony struggled for each breath under the oxygen mask. "Do you hear me? Not today and not like this. Ducky is on his way, so is the ambulance. You hold on until they get here. You hold on until they get you to Bethesda and then you hold on even after that. This is not how Anthony DiNozzo goes out. Not this way and certainly not at the hands of some two-bit gang banger. You hear me, Tony?"

You. Will. Not. Die. The memory of those words spoken years ago flooded his mind and he closed his eyes against it, anger winning out over all the other emotions and boiling in his veins.

"You stay with me, DiNozzo, damn it! You stay with me!"

"He's here," Ziva said quietly with a tilt of her head. Gibbs glanced over his shoulder and saw his ME moving quickly towards them.

"DUCKY!" He bellowed over his shoulder and watched the ME's pace quicken. He'd made it. His ME had made it in minutes. Gibbs looked up and met Ducky's eyes and didn't have time to check the raw fear he knew the good doctor would see on his face. He didn't care, though, just like he didn't care when he was unceremoniously pushed from Tony's side and the doctor set to work with grim determination. Ziva was batted away as well and Jimmy took over for her on the other side of Tony.

Gibbs watched Ducky and Jimmy work, their motions almost like a well choreographed dance. Ducky took the pressure bandages Jimmy had at the ready for him and covered the worst of the knife work with the white gauze then reached for Ziva's hands and replaced them on Tony's torso. He felt for a pulse at Tony's neck and asked after the ambulance with a steady and calm voice.

"ETA is seven minutes."

"He doesn't have seven minutes." Ducky's expression had turned grim and he removed the finger from Tony's pulse point. Jimmy, evidently understanding the look, held the two defibrillator paddles out to Ducky who took them with shaky hands. Gibbs' tried not to shake himself. If Tony needed to be shocked then that meant he didn't have a pulse and if Tony didn't have a pulse then that meant his agent was dead. He tried not to let the thought destroy his foundation, it was the only thing keeping him up.

Tony's body arched away from the ground as the shock was delivered. Gibbs watched with breath held as Ducky searched again for a pulse and then strangled back a cheer when he saw the faintest lift at the side of Ducky's lips. It was the doctor's version of a smile under duress.

"I have a pulse!" He exclaimed and Gibbs let out the breath he was holding. Some color had come back to DiNozzo's cheeks and his chest was rising and falling again and stayed that way until the paramedics arrived. Everyone was happy to relinquish control to the experts who worked quickly to stabilize Tony as best they could and get him ready for transport. Gibbs moved in to help the paramedics roll Tony onto a stretcher and found himself with hands clamped tight over the wounds again as the paramedics grabbed either side of the board to walk Tony out to the ambulance. Their gurney would have been useless over the soft earth of the backyard.

When they reached the street the crowd of onlookers had grown and night had completely fallen. The clouds he'd noted off in the distance ages ago had arrived and were spitting a fine mist down onto their heads and every so often a crack of lightning lit up the night sky. He didn't have time to count the seconds before the thunder came, a long ago tradition he'd shared with his daughter.

The paramedics loaded Tony in the back of the rig and Gibbs climbed in after. He'd expected resistance, even had the speech he would give to be allowed in ready to go, but his way was not barred and he was allowed in without comment. Ziva stood outside in the misting rain, staring in at them, her urgent eyes going back and forth between him and Tony and the paramedic securing Tony's gurney. The driver stepped around her to close the doors and Gibbs caught Ziva's gaze once more through the back window as the rig prepared to pull off. She had stopped crying but her eyes held a desperation that had Gibbs wanting to throw open the doors and take her with them. He felt as though he were leaving a man behind, but Tony needed him now and as the rig pulled away from her and the siren wailed to life he looked away and focused on his mission.

* * *

_Author's note: another chapter that ended up twice as long as the original version! Tony talked earlier about a headspace he finds himself in sometimes during intense situations and I think i was unconsciously describing where I go when I get into a writing groove. I hope you're having as much fun reading this as I am of writing it. I'll try to get another chapter up soon. I've got the last few chapters outlined but not at all polished. Please leave a review, it will help motivate me to post quicker! :)_


	15. Chapter 15

_A nurse is trying to re-wrap his hand and Ducky won't shut up beside him. He realizes he's been putting up a fight. He releases the struggle and for the 1,258th he asks to see his agent and for the 1,258th time his request is denied. The doctor has been by to convey words he doesn't understand, or perhaps will not let himself understand. He talked of Emergency Surgery, Blood Loss, Shredded Internal Organs, Collapsed Lung, Complications due to Scar Tissue from the Plague and it's all Gibbs can do not to put his hand through the wall again. He wants to see his agent and tries to understand but they keep looking at him and he picks up on what they are thinking. Even Ducky gives him the look. _

_'You're in shock' it says. 'You need to rest' it says._

_'Screw you!' he wants to scream. He's a Marine, a former Gunny Sergeant, and he doesn't do shock. It is not a word in his vocabulary but then, he ponders, how did he get to this room? How did a nurse get half way through re-bandaging his abused knuckles before he came back to himself and realized where he was or that Ducky was beside him._

_"How'd you get here?"_

_"I brought Timothy and Abby over from headquarters" there's the look again. It's as annoying as a cheese grater on a chalkboard._

_"Are they okay?" Ducky doesn't answer, the nurse finishes bandaging his hand._

_"You can go now." and Gibbs follows Ducky out. They're down the halls and through the antiseptic and the lines of patients bringing their IVs along for walks, and into the surgery waiting room where they are all in front of him, demanding answers of him. And for once in his life, he can't fake like he has them. This thing with Tony, this failure of his mission, has shaken him at his axis and the center of gravity has shifted. He doesn't have the answers and Ducky deposits him into a chair before going to look for them on his behalf. He doesn't know whether to be grateful, or pissed off at the ME's presumptuousness._

_Abby is here and instantly moves to curl up in the seat beside him, resting a head on his shoulder. He welcomes the touch and puts an arm around this girl who has intertwined her life with his, who lives of Caf-Pow's, death metal and the thrill of the science. _

_His gaze meets McGee's who has his casted leg out in front of him and is trying so very hard to appear relaxed and in control. He can see right through this farce of course and he wonders just how much pain the young agent is in. He contemplates the enormity of McGee's loyalty (exactly like Tony's) and the countless hours he's spent working this case, only to have it end here, in the surgery waiting room of Bethesda hospital, his leg in a cast and most likely blaming himself for what's happened. Yes, he can see the storm in the eyes that meet his._

_He tries to convey his gratitude for all that McGee has done in the look he offers back, hoping that the young man can read what he's put there and understand._

_'It's not your fault,' he wills across the space that separates them, _

_'It's not your fault, Tim'. His real name, not McGee, that's what this situation has done to them._

_'There was always the chance that this would have happened even if you had been there. This is not your fault.' The softening of his agent's eyes tells him that McGee understands. His agent looks away but he can see he's shifted his perspective. There's been a lot of that lately._

_Ziva arrives in the waiting room next and he can see that she's been crying. In anyone else he might see it as a sign of weakness, but in the former Mossad agent, it's a glimmer of humanity and he's happy to see it so blatantly painted on her face. Eli David was a great and powerful man, but sometimes daughters just need to be daughters. He doubts Ziva was ever allowed to just be. Never let it be said that Leroy Jethro Gibbs never let his agents be who exactly who they were meant to be. No, he will not judge those tears and he's happy when she sits beside McGee and soothes the iron clad grip he has on the chair arm with her hand._

_He contemplates Ducky and Palmer next who are discussing something with heads bent. He notes with detachment the smeared blood on the Medical Examiner's coat and he tries not to relive how it got there. His own blood covered skin has been scrubbed clean, he has no memory of the act. _

_Ducky has outdone himself tonight, taken an impossible situation and made it acceptable. He's taken on so much so that Gibbs can be where he is now: brought McGee and Abby over, got Tony into the ambulance still breathing and heart-beating. He wills the doctor to look up and see the thankful smile that reaches his lips but not his eyes. There still too much uncertainty for real smiles yet._

_A soft snoring near his ear brings him back from his thoughts and Abby's soft sounds of sleep are almost the tipping point. The sleepless week, the dead children, all that blood and Tony's prone form added to the pain medication someone must have slipped him springs the slightest hint of moisture to the corners of his eyes. When another faceless doctor enters to give them news, he's happy for the distraction._


	16. Chapter 16

"Gibbs, is that you?" The call was breaking up in his ear, but Gibbs finally heard Leon Vance's voice come through a little clearer.

"I hear ya, Leon. Reception is shitty here."

"Are you at Bethesda? How's Tony?" Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose and went over Tony's prognosis with Vance. He was tired of explaining it to people, of telling them that his agent had just gotten out of emergency surgery to repair a laundry list of injuries he couldn't name and would likely not last the night. It opened an already raw wound again and again and he was weary to the bone and bleeding out onto the pavement with it.

"... then add a broken leg and a broken arm to the list and they say it'll be touch and go for a while." The director was quiet for a few moments.

"I've got a team on your evidence and Jones in interrogation. If I get anything from him I'll let you know. He's got a public defender who's pretty wet behind the ears so maybe we'll get lucky. I also had a substitute ME flown in, she's processing the bodies now." Vance finished. Gibbs could tell there was more the director wanted to say, but silence stretched out between them.

"I could really use Ms. Sciuto here," Vance finally said and Gibbs tried to maintain his crumbling composure. "Some of the more pressing evidence is being shipped out to an independent lab, but she's the best one for the job."

"She's pretty out of it, Leon. They all are."

"I understand that Gibbs, but we have a duty to Tony to try and bring the Angels and the Knights Templar down. Without Finch's evidence, I'm going to need all hands on deck, and that includes Ms. Sciuto in whatever shape I can get her." Gibbs knew that really included them all, but understood the directors request for Abby first. She was the backbone of the team and without her, they were nothing.

"I'll try Leon. No promises." It was maddening sitting at the hospital helpless while other agents finished up his case and got their hands in his evidence, but this is where he needed to be. When Tony woke up... IF Tony woke up, Gibbs was determined to be the first person he saw. He'd given the agent an order. 'You do not die today,' and he had to be around to make sure that order was followed. He realized a second too late that Vance was talking to him again.

"Gibbs! Are you still there?"

"Yeah, sorry."

"I was saying I've got agents on the way to Gloria Finch's house to see if they can find anything." Gibbs recalled the tossed house and thought it a long shot that they'd find anything there. "Perhaps they'll turn something up."

"I doubt it." He said bluntly, tired all of a sudden of maintaining politeness.

"Regardless, I expect an update from that team within the hour. In fact," the director said, pausing. "I think this is them now. Keep me updated regarding DiNozzo?"

"Fine."

"And Gibbs, I need Sciuto back here as soon as you can spare her. I know she's hurting right now, but like I said before, we owe it to DiNozzo to bring down every last one of those bastards."

"I'll try." He said again without conviction.

"There'll be a car waiting."

Gibbs angrily snapped his flip phone closed and looked out into the shadowed parking lot. The lot was in a perpetual state of semi-darkness, the floodlights from the ambulance bay sweeping out in all directions and casting strange shadows in between parked cars. He was powerless and the utter helplessness was driving him mad. If he thought about it, what he really needed was someone to beat the shit out of and the man in the interrogation room back at NCIS was the perfect target, but he couldn't reach Darius Jones just yet. Tony's condition demanded his full attention now, as did the five people waiting for him back in the surgery waiting room. He tried to get up the courage to return, something keeping his feet firmly rooted where he was.

He thought back on the scene he'd left to take the call from Vance and escape into fresh air. The waiting room was frigid while the air in the ambulance bay was still warm from the day and the vehicles that came and went from under its awning. Here he could breath, back in the waiting room too much tried to reach out and choke him.

Abby had fallen asleep on his shoulder and he had jostled her unintentionally when a be-scrubbed doctor had walked into the room and asked for the family of Anthony DiNozzo. Gibbs had been quick to lay claim to the title and approached the tired looking man. He'd received a quizzical look and was ready to argue if the doctor had tried to say he wasn't family, but the man had continued on to list the litany of injuries Tony had suffered at the hands of Miguel Martinez. He could barely recall the names the doctor gave for what was going on inside Tony's mangled body but he trusted Ducky to catalog it all and be able to recall it at a moment's notice should it be needed. What he was able to garner from the medical jargon was that Tony had suffered severe internal damage and was not breathing on his own (complicated further by his scared lungs) but out of surgery and in recovery. His agent was alive and the first thing out of Gibbs' mouth had been to ask when they would be allowed to see Tony. The doctor had given him a sad look.

"It won't be for a while yet." he'd said. "I'll have someone come get you when he's moved to the ICU." It wasn't a 'yes you can see him now' but a promise that he wouldn't be kept away forever. Gibbs had been satisfied with that.

The memory of that promise was pulling him back towards the sterile hallways of the hospital and away from the night's fresh air yet the uncertainty of what lay in wait for him when he returned to those halls was threatening to unachor him. He teetered for a moment on the edge of uncertainly. In the end the yearning to see his agent trumped any play his mind made for comfort and Gibbs made his way back inside. His team had relocated from the surgery waiting room to the ICU waiting room and he eventually found them.

Had this been any normal day, he would have been greeted by Abby who would have bounded up to him with smiles and the glimmering hope of a Caf-Pow in her eye. In the wee hours of this morning, however, the Forensic scientist occupied her chair with head down and a barely noticeable rock back and forth to her upper body. Gibbs chose a seat beside Ducky and inquired after news.

"They haven't been back since you left. " The normal jovial doctor said in little more than a whisper

"When will they let us see him?"

"There are any number of things that could keep Anthony in recovery, Jethro. We just have to be patient." The words were a little icier than Gibbs had expected but he let them go without comment. This moment they found themselves in was hitting everyone hard and Ducky was not excluded from that. Gibbs knew the affection the wizened ME had for Tony. Sure, he was more often exasperated with the movie encyclopedia that was DiNozzo than anything (they all were at times) but beneath that movie line exterior beat the heart of a true friend, a hero, a son. The possibility of that heart ceasing to beat had all of them watching the door in growing fear that the next person who walked through would tell them that Tony had died.

"Okay, Duck." He said finally and then risked a moment of tenderness by putting a reassuring hand on the doctor's shoulder. The gesture earned him the whisper of a smile and a heavy sigh from the older man. The room fell into silence.

This waiting room was more comfortable than the last, but more somber, too. The lighting was dim as if designed around their collective moods and Gibbs could see how it would be easy to lose track of time here. There were no windows to the outside world, no light to mark the hours, and the only clock in the room was tucked away in another section they were not occupying. A TV droned quietly from somewhere he couldn't see and time passed slowly around them. Perhaps that was the hospital's intention, to throw him off with no unit of measurement to tie him to how long Tony was in recovery and how long he was being kept from seeing his agent. The lack of a clock did not stop him from checking his watch every ten minutes as time dragged by slowly.

Two hours passed by at the snail's pace the room had set and still there was no news of Tony's condition. Ducky had disappeared a few minutes ago to see if he could sweet talk some information out of the ICU nurses, most of them familiar with the enigmatic medical examiner. After what seemed like an eternity a harried looking nurse breezed into the room and announced that Tony was situated in ICU and ready for visitors. Ducky followed in after her with a sour look on his face, his eyes shooting daggers at the woman's back.

The small woman in the burgundy scrubs barked orders out like a drill sergeant but Gibbs knew he would be breaking every last one of those orders as she spoke them.

"Two visitors at a time." Maybe, but not likely

"Five minute visits once every hour." Not on her life

"All visits cease between 5pm and 6pm every evening," Maybe he would follow that one. He guessed he should give her something.

Gibbs kept his comments to himself and when the angry looking nurse inquired as to who would make the first visit, all eyes looked to Gibbs who stepped forward under the nurses piercing gaze. No one else made a move with him, they all silently understood that this first visit was his. They loved him and respected him enough to give him that. The first moments with Tony in the ICU were his to bear and none of them would intrude on that moment no matter how much they each wanted to see Tony for themselves.

He allowed the no-nonsense woman to lead him towards Tony's bed in the ICU. As he passed the closed curtains of the other ICU rooms he suddenly thought of Tony's father and prayed that someone had thought to contact Tony's father and tell him what was going on. Gibbs made a mental note to ask Ducky. It was a task he didn't think he could handle. One he'd leave to others.

"He's on a ventilator right now but I don't know how long he'll be on it, that's up to his doctors. He has a rough time in recovery which is why it took us so long to come get you but he's stable for now. The next few hours will be the most critical. Dr. Pitt has been on vacation the past week, but we got word to him and he'll be coming in to take over Mr. Dinozzo's care." Gibbs didn't know what he did to deserve the quick change in the nurse's temperature but gone was the gruff drill sergeant and replacing her was a grandmotherly woman who was talking to him softly and with compassion in her voice. "Your friend seems to have made quite an impression on the good doctor. We don't often see a doctor cut a vacation short to come in for a patient."

The ICU was set up in a U shape with the nurses' station in the center. The contradiction that was Tony's nurse was leading him around the entire length of the floor and towards the farthest bed from the entrance to the ICU. At first he thought they had a problem. The rules his team would inevitable break would be done so in full view of the station they'd have to pass every trip down to Tony's room. Luckily the nurse pointed out a matching entrance/exit they could use right off of Tony's room. The nurse kept calling Tony Mr. DiNozzo and he bit back the urge to correct her and point out that Tony was in fact a federal agent and that Gibbs was his boss.

The nurse stopped suddenly in front of him and Gibbs almost ran into the woman who had spun around to study him, as if assessing his threat level. Apparently Drill Sergeant was back.

"Mr. Dinozzo's injuries are extensive and he is in critical condition. We've heavily sedated him and it's going to be a shock going in there, you should prepare yourself," the nurse preempted with a hand on the corner of the curtain.

She might as well have said to prepare an interpretive dance when she pulled back the curtain and gave him access to the small, hushed space of Tony's ICU cubicle. No amount of preparation could ever prepare him for what he saw. The enormity of it all had him unable to move beyond the few steps he'd taken past the curtain.

"Talk to him, he can hear you," she said softly before pulling the curtain closed behind him.

The lights were dim but his eyes were immediately drawn to Tony's face and the tubing of the ventilator that protruded from his mouth, held in place by a long white band of surgical tape. It was all wrong and all out of place and Gibbs' mind was rebelling against the images it was trying to process. His agent's eyes were closed in sleep but Gibbs knew that was from the heavy sedation they were keeping him under.

The shoulder of Tony's hospital gown was drawn down slightly and another tube disappeared into the flesh of his upper chest near his neck. The tube expanded to 4 separate ports and each was in use delivering different colored fluids to Tony's traumatized body. Its presence unnerved him. So much needed just to keep Tony alive.

Just below the hospital gown Gibbs could see the slightest hint of gauze and tried not to let his mind imagine what his eyes could not see, the deep maze Miguel Martinez had cut into his agent's flesh. Thankfully the hospital gown hid all but a small reminder of what the cartel leader had done. That man was dead now, Gibbs had seen the corpse himself, yet that didn't stop the urge to kill the man a second time from bubbling up within him. Wires from the heart monitor emerged from beneath Tony's gown and crisscrossed across pale skin to disappeared into the monitor that was quietly, almost reverently, voicing each beat of Tony's heart. Gibbs could almost feel his own heart try to match the rhythm.

A blanket covered Tony's lower half but Gibbs could make out the ridges of the wires, tubes and drains hidden beneath it. An IV protruded and wrapped its way around the back of Tony's heavily taped and deeply bruised right hand and up to the bags hanging from the IV poles at the head of his bed. Gibbs wondered at the names of the medications but didn't recognize a one of them except for the unmistakable bag of blood also hanging there, it's tube leading to the PICC line in Tony's left arm. A white oxygen monitor was clipped to his middle finger, keeping constant vigil on his oxygen levels. They had the Plague to thank for that one.

The blue tubing of the ventilator forcing air into Tony's lungs weaved a path to machinery on the other side of his bed. It resembled parts of a hamster cage Gibbs had once put together for Kelly. Tony's chest rose and fell in time with the mechanical whoosh issued from the machine every few seconds and the thought of machines keeping his agent alive made Gibbs pause in his inspection. Tony Dinozzo was pure energy and to see machines doing the work that his agent normally did without thought was sobering. A blood pressure cuff circling Tony's left upper forearm came to life and took its reading against the pale skin of Tony's arm. There wasn't much room for the cuff above the PICC line and the white case that encased the lower half of his left arm. More of Miguel Martinez' handiwork.

Tony was still, unmoving, and as pale as the hospital sheets and Gibbs could do nothing but stand just as still and unmoving at Tony's bedside. Eventually, as if pulled by some unseen force, Gibbs put out a tentative hand and when the touch of his fingertips on the back of DiNozzo's hand didn't have alarms sounding, he risked taking the hand fully in his own. He was mindful of the IV and its tube, but held firm to the hand and tried to throw anchor once more into the impossibly tossing sea.

"Tony."

The nurse had said to talk to him, but Gibbs had suddenly lost his ability to form words. The thoughts racing through his brain and the quiet noises of the increasingly claustrophobic ICU room chased all cognizant thought from his head and all he could do was say his agent's name.

"Tony."

It was both a plea and an order all in one but this time his agent wasn't awake to offer a weak 'I gotcha, Boss' or crack a stupid joke. Damaged by the plague, his lungs were too taxed for breath, let alone healthy enough to allow him to speak and give Gibbs a rundown of hospital movie plots. He regretted the glaring looks that cut those references short now.

There were words that needed to be said, but he couldn't bring himself to say them. He wanted to give the dying man before him hope and encouragement, more orders to beat this and live, but he remained silent while watching the mechanical rise and fall of Tony's chest and listened to the soft chirping chorus of the heart monitor. His agent was close to death. The doctor hadn't come out and said it, but he didn't have to. When were people going to realize that this wasn't his first rodeo and he knew how to read people? It was his job and no amount of beating around the bush by doctors trying to spare his feelings was going to keep him from the truth. He'd read it from the beginning in the sad looks he'd been getting all night.

A beep came from above his head and startled him out of his thoughts. The impressive screen bolted to the wall above Tony's head and marqueeing his stats across its face let out a loud squawk but quieted a moment later and no nurse appeared in the room. Whatever it was indicating, it must have been ok. Sensing his 5 minutes may be coming to a close soon and wondering how the nurses would react to his plan on not leaving the hospital or Tony's bedside until absolutely necessary, Gibbs reluctantly released his grip on Tony's hand and set it gently back onto the bed. The ever present yearning to put his fist through the wall was threatening him again but just as the storm raged up and threatened to capsize, a warm presence was beside him.

Ziva appeared at his side and their eyes locked after she finished her own assessment of Tony's condition. Saying nothing, she took the hand Gibbs had abandoned moments ago and began murmuring soft words to Tony and running a hand through his hair. Gibbs took the tender moment as his cue to leave and quietly exited the ICU room. The rest of the team had to be anxious to visit and there was no sense in making his power play with the nurses just yet, risk their undivided attention before everyone had had a chance to see Tony.

Gibbs walked out of the ICU and down the corridor that lead back to the ICU waiting room. When he arrived a vaguely familiar individual was talking with Ducky outside the waiting room. The two men turned as he approached and Gibbs shook hands with Dr. Brad Pit.

"Agent Gibbs, nice to see you again. I only wish it were under better circumstances." The friendly doctor said when Gibbs took the proffered hand.

"Thanks for cutting your vacation short for DiNozzo, Doc. I appreciate the sacrifice."

"No, no, it was no sacrifice at all, not for Tony. I don't know if he's mentioned it but he and I have kept in touch a bit since the last time he was here. I was just telling Dr. Mallard that I've been monitoring Tony's lungs off and on since his brush with the plague, and well, the guy kind of grows on you after a while." Gibbs and Ducky smiled knowing exactly where the young doctor was coming from. Gibbs was silently grateful for Dr. Pitt's presence. He was familiar with how Gibbs and his team operated. He'd have clout with the nurses and the hospital staff and perhaps the fight to stay near Tony as much as possible wouldn't as difficult for him or his team as he had imagined.

"Can you tell us anything new about his condition?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, like I was telling Dr. Mallard…"

"Please, dear boy, call me Ducky. Dr. Mallard is so formal." The ME interrupted.

"Alright then. Like I was telling Ducky, I don't have anything new for you, unfortunately. I've gone over Tony's chart and will be headed in to check the surgeon's handy work in a few minutes. I wanted to touch base with you all first."

"We certainly do appreciate it, Dr. Pitt" Ducky said.

"You've seen his chart. What chance do you think Tony's got to pull through this?" Gibbs wasn't afraid to ask the question of the young doctor He was confident the kid wouldn't offer a line of bullshit like other doctors had and would answer him straight. Pitt thought for a moment before answering.

"He's in critical condition at this juncture, Agent Gibbs. The internal damage he suffered was extensive and there's a lot that can go wrong from here. Clinically speaking, I'd tell you to prepare yourselves for the worst but we all know who Tony DiNozzo is and that he's not going out without a fight. Having people around you who love you is a powerful thing so I'm not going to tell you to prepare yourself. I'm going to tell you to give Tony time and all the care and support you can spare until he's awake and out of the woods." There wasn't anything Gibbs could say to that. It was probably the most honest answer he was going to get by the time all this was all over.

"What preventative measures are you taking?" Ducky asked. Gibbs wondered at how much more honesty he could take.

"There will be a risk of infection like with any trauma of this nature and with Tony's damaged lungs and being on the ventilator he's going to be susceptible to pneumonia. We've got him on some pretty heavy duty antibiotics and I'll get him off that vent as soon as I can. We'll watch for any signs of fever and right now they're keeping an eye on his kidney function as well. There was some damage done by the knife to many of his organs, but Dr. Wilder, the trauma surgeon who performed Tony's surgery, was confident that he repaired everything satisfactorily."

"And Dr. Wilder a capable surgeon?" Ducky again, he'd never have thought to ask such a thing.

"The best we have at the hospital. I'll go touch base with the nurses and see Tony, if you'll excuse me." The doctor bowed away and Gibbs followed Ducky back into the waiting area. Abby had fallen back asleep but McGee was wide awake and anticipating his arrival.

"How is he?" Gibbs couldn't put the answer into words but the look he gave McGee conveyed what he was thinking.

"Why don't you go take a turn. Dr. Pitt is here now, you might see him in there." McGee nodded and got to his foot unsteadily. Crutching out of the room, he disappeared out into the hall and Gibbs settled into the chair beside Abby.

"Hey, Duck?" A thought returned to his mind. The doctor looked up. "Do you know if anyone was able to call DiNozzo's father to let him know what was going on?" He asked the question quietly, trying not to disturb the still dozing Abby.

"Ah yes. Anthony Dinozzo Sr. was indisposed when I called him on the way to Bethesda earlier tonight. His answering service promised to have Mr. Dinozzo call at his earliest opportunity, but he has yet to do so. I left explicit details." Gibbs could see the disgust in Ducky's face and felt his own well up. In the few times he'd met Dinozzo Sr. he'd dutifully played the role of detached and aloof boss all the while hiding his intense feelings of dislike for the man who lived beyond his means, conning people as he went. DiNozzo, Sr. had never been the kind of father Tony had deserved Gibbs cursed the man for his marked absence from his son's side. If Tony was going to survive this, he needed everyone in his corner. Gibbs could only pray his little band of outcasts (former Mossad, geeks, goths, etc.) was enough.

* * *

_Author's note: little bit slower of a chapter. Hope you enjoy. Please take a moment to leave me a review and thanks to all who already have! I'm not much good at responding to them but I sure do appreciate every single one of them!_


	17. Chapter 17

_The world is spinning madly and she takes a chair to stop it. Her hands are clean but the handkerchief is not and she deposits its taint in the trash. Jimmy will understand. The blood was beyond her control._

_The spinning slows but fear roots her to the chair. She can't ask, not yet._

_No, she mustn't do this. She must get answers. She must know if her actions were enough to save him. His blood on her hands, she can't get it off, not until she knows for certain. Merciful God, why must the world work so constantly pull him from her? Why can't they be and stay still? This constant motion, the constant pump of blood from veins... She must get up._

_She must._

_But who does she go to when her Wailing Wall is pacing the floor as lost and adrift as she? Palmer, with his bumbling words? The nurse who is eyeing them critically? She's seen what this has done to Gibbs, notes the wrapped yet bloody hand. No, the only one who can save her from this… ineffectualness is not here and her insides are shifting and she's turning to stone._

_'Get up!' She yells to her feet. _

_'Get up' she screams to her knees. _

_'He's dying and you've got to find out why.' _

_But her legs have become trees, her feet the roots and these roots dig deep._

_Abba_

_And now she sees it. She can't lose Tony, not like she lost Him. The wounds are too fresh from before. _

_The shudder she gives releases the roots. She has no more energy to anchor herself to the ground. She floats on the wake of the breeze Ducky creates when he comes through the door and follows him over to Gibbs._

_She gets her answers._

_He spills them out onto the floor for all of them to see but she can't make herself bend down and rummage through the parts._

_"He is alive?"_

_A nod_

_"He will live?"_

_Silence._

_Ducky pulls Gibbs away to re-wrap his hand and she flees to the hospital halls in search of an escape._

* * *

_Author's note: To the guest reviewer who pointed out Ziva's lack of reaction at the hospital, this one's for you. I completely neglected the poor girl, thank you for bringing it to my attention :)_


	18. Chapter 18

The computer screen blurred for the second time that hour and McGee determinedly scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes and reached for his coffee. Like the last time he'd gone for the cup it was empty and he slammed the cardboard container into the garbage can with all the force he could muster.

He hadn't slept in 48 hours and the urge to fold his arms and catch a few minutes of rest in his was calling him loudly and by name. The only thing keeping him from acting on the impulse was the thought of Tony fighting for his life over at Bethesda. That knowledge was the only thing keeping him upright at the moment and until they had gone through every scrap of evidence and searched every possible location for Finch's missing evidence he couldn't possibly rest. He was currently going through everything they had on Simon Finch, trying find any hint of where the tapes and the documents he had hidden might be. Abby was down in her lab diligently pouring over the evidence coming from their numerous crime scenes over the past seven days and Palmer was down in autopsy currently dismantling Miguel Martinez, former leader of the Knights Templar. Ducky had elected to stay behind at the hospital with Gibbs and Ziva while McGee, Abby and Palmer had returned to NCIS after having seen Tony. There was so much to do and while there were plenty of other very capable agents that could take over the case, it was understood that McGee and Abby had a certain aptitude in their fields that was unparalleled at times and Palmer had proved himself a more than capable assistant ME. As much as McGee had wanted to stay with the rest of his team at the hospital, he'd opted to leave in the end. His leg was in agony from the hard uncomfortable chairs and the nurses were strict with their rules and he wasn't helping anyone stuck in a waiting room at the hospital all day milling about for news. Gibbs had promised regular updates every hour on the hour and so far he hadn't disappointed.

McGee pushed himself away from the computer in a fit of frustration and looked down at his casted leg. Going to find a refill of coffee was going to be a chore, one his tired body wasn't in the mood for but he needed caffeine and he needed it now. He was so lost in his plans to get mobile he failed to notice the nervous approach of another agent.

"Agent McGee?" A young kid with a Tech department badge approached his desk tentatively, a large styrofoam cup clutched in the arm extended out before him.

"Yeah?" He asked, too tired to care why the shaky, lanky tech kid was addressing him.

"Director Vance sent me up to see if I could be of any help. And he told me to bring this to you," he indicated, placing the large cup on McGee's desk. The warm welcoming aroma of coffee assailed his nostrils. "and I just got back from Ms. Sciuto's lab to give her a Caf-Pow. I didn't think anyone else drank those besides me."

If Tim hadn't been cast bound and tired as all hell, he could have jumped up and hugged the young tech. He greedily took a large swallow of the coffee, ignoring as it singed its way down his throat, and waved the kid over to Ziva's desk.

"Use that computer over there and access case file #11398. I'm trying to search for anything that might indicate a place Simon Finch visited frequently and might have hidden something at. If you see anything that sticks out, anything at all, let me know."

"You got it, boss!" and McGee was reminded suddenly of his days running the tech division during those long weeks after Vance had disbanded the team and put them all through hell to catch a mole in NCIS. The young man quickly went to work with an exuberance that almost made McGee want to cry. If he was going to bring down the organizations responsible for putting his friend in the hospital, he needed the intensity that came so easily to the kid already typing away at Ziva's desk. He silently sent up a prayer of thanks for Vance's thoughtful gesture.

There were rumors that the director himself had descended upon interrogation and had spoken with Darius Jones. It wasn't often that Director Vance got his hands dirty but the case involved one of their own now and while nothing Jones gave up would help Tony, the team needed to be able to put the emotional case to bed and forever. McGee knew the only way that would happen for him was if they destroyed the D.C. Angel's and perhaps did some damage to the Knights Templar. McGee wasn't an idiot, he knew there was no way of taking down a Mexican drug cartel so far from its roots, but if what he had been reading in Tony's notes was true, the drug cartel's often brought about their own demises. Mexican authorities were also making it harder for the drug cartels to operate.

His phone chirped to life at his side and he pulled the device from his pocket and read the name and the time with dread. Either Gibbs' promised call was early or there was news on Tony's condition. McGee couldn't bring himself to press Answer. There were too many things the call could mean and none of them he wanted to hear. If Tony was dying or dead, then maybe the longer he held off on answering, the longer his well ordered world could stay stationary and centered. But he had to answer, there was no ignoring Gibbs' call. When the Boss called, you answered. Tempting fate, McGee swiped the pad of his finger across the phone's face.

"Yeah, Boss?" He hated the way his voice shook and admonished himself for the weakness in his voice.

"Anything new, McGee?' Relief flooded him instantly. If Gibbs had something horrible to say, he would have offered it up without preamble, right? McGee almost choked on the relief, he coughed to cover it.

"McGee!?"

"I'm here, sorry boss. I thought you were calling to tell me something had happened to Tony." The silence that followed had his earlier relief turning to ice.

"McGee, I asked if there was anything new."

"Not yet, sorry boss." He knew he was breaking a rule, but he was just too damn tired to care.

"Nothing?"

"Well, Abby's been running evidence since we got back. So far we've got a lot of names but no concrete evidence linking any of them to our case. Vance has the getaway car driver from the Quantico mess headed over from lockup for interrogation. I've been trying to track Finch's movements over the past six months or so to see if he visited any place more than others. If I find anything, I'll get someone to check it out. Everyone around here is making it their personal mission to bring down those creeps for good. How's Tony?" He snuck the question in quick and at the end, hoping the trick would work. His question was met with more silence and McGee fought a surge of pain from his broken leg.

"His temp is elevated. They're worried about pneumonia or a possible infection in one of his wounds. They won't know more until they get the results back from his blood work."

"Ok. Boss, I..."

"Keep me updated, McGee. Oh, and Tim?"

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Let Abbs know for me, okay?"

"Sure thing."

The conversation ended and McGee felt the weight of the world settle over his shoulders. Tony couldn't afford pneumonia. Ziva had shown him enough of the research she'd done into the plague to be sure about that. Tony's lungs were too scarred, too damaged to handle infection...

His leg throbbed uncomfortably, the young kid across the bullpen (maybe his name was Brent?) was clicking through screens in an annoying rhythm and the ineffectual fingerprint search his computer was attempting were all threatening to unseat him. He had to get up, had to move, had to think and had to get some fresh air. Moving rather than deciding, he was up on his good foot and crutching to the elevator with a hastily mumbled explanation to (Brett was it?) on his way. He'd go down to Abby's lab and give her the news of Tony, get a status update and run by autopsy afterwards. That should make him forget, at least for a little while, what was going on in other places and beyond his control.

He stepped into the elevator and let the doors close behind him before hitting the emergency button without realizing what he was doing, halting the elevator's decent. The lights went out and he was plunged into semi-darkness and the weight of the case, his leg, Tony's condition and his two days without sleep finally got the better of him. Timothy McGee began to cry.

There were only a handful of people out in the world that had ever seen him like this. He'd built fortified walls around himself to see to that, but everything that had happened the past seven days was more than anyone should have to bear. At first he fought it, clenching his jaw so tight he expected teeth to break but in the end his shoulders shook with the force of his sobs. He could only hope that no one heard him through the doors as he fought the urge to crouch in the corner and wrap his arms around knees like he did when he was a child. The stupid cast on his leg kept him from that comfort. He could only stand, leaning against the metal of the elevator wall, face mirrored back at him as he fogged the reflective surface with each excruciating exhalation of emotion.

He cried for his friend. He cried for his own self-pity and the leg that hurt him so damn much and because all he really wanted was for someone to take care of him for a change. He cried for mutinous thoughts like that. He cried for the Finch's and he cried for wanting the firm embrace of his Penny. He cried for it all until he'd wrung himself dry and the emotions sat hitching in his throat.

"Aw, come on McGee! It's not all so bad!"

"How can you say that? You're dying."

"Maybe. But you're not, right?" McGee couldn't argue with that.

"Why does everything about this case have to suck? I get my leg broken, you end up in the hospital in ICU... It's not fair Tony."

"Life's not fair, McGoose. The sooner you realize that the easier what you've got to do will become."

"What have I got to do, Tony?"

"Move on. Be there for Gibbs and Ziva when I can't anymore."

"I can't do it. Looking after them, it's your job."

"And soon it's gonna' to be yours, Tim. I inherited the job just like you will. There are a long line of Gibbs' keepers. You'll manage fine if you keep to the rules."

"I don't think I can do it."

"You're gonna have to McGoo. I gotta make sure of that before... well, you know."

"But what if I can't?"

"Ah, the big question. The root of our problem. You still don't trust yourself."

"I trust myself."

"Right, if you say so. You're the one having an imaginary conversation with me about it in an elevator."

"Alright, suppose I don't trust myself. How do I fix that?"

"I don't think I'm the one you should be asking, McGee. I don't have a movie quote that'll cover that doozie."

"But you always know what to do."

"Hardly, I'm in the ICU aren't I? By the way are my nurses hot? I hope they're hot."

"Tony, be serious."

"I'm a hallucination, I don't have to be serious." As if to punctuate the statement, the bell of the emergency alarm sounded. He'd lingered too long.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

"McGee, you look dead on your feet... or 'foot' rather," He'd tried to revive himself a little with a splash of water to his face in the men's room, but his attempts at hiding his fatigue didn't fool Abby. His moment of lost control in the elevator was weighing on his mind and he struggled to understand the meaning behind the strange semi-hallucinated conversation he'd had with Tony in the elevator. The experience reminded him of a gaming binge he'd gone on one week where all he did was play X-Box and drink 5 Hour Energy for five days straight. He'd seen things by the end of that week that still made his skin crawl.

The conversation he'd had with Tony seemed almost prophetic but he didn't dare let his thoughts wander over what it was predicting. There were real things, tangible things, here for him to deal with and he tried to wipe the whole foreboding experience from his mind. He realized suddenly that Abby was trying to get his attention and she pulled him out of his reverie with a snap of her fingers.

"McGee! Are you alright?" She was studying him with concern in her eyes and left him a second later to roll a chair over to where he stood on his crutches. He plopped down into it, bringing the weight of the world with him. He was amazed the chair didn't collapse beneath him.

"I'm okay, just tired."

"Liar." She said with a glint in her eyes. "I know that look, McGee. When's the last time you took a pain pill or got some rest? The case will still be here in a few hours."

'But Tony might not.' The thought popped into his head unbidden. He didn't dare voice it.

"Do you have anything yet?" he asked instead, diverting Abby to a topic she couldn't resist no matter how pathetic and worn out he might look.

"My babies and I have been busy. I've got tons of fingerprints and partials to go through and I've been running them as I find them. Um… I've been running some trace found on Finch. I'm hoping it might help us track his movements of the past few days. I even got his stomach contents from Palmer but that analysis will take a while. Sometimes I wish I could have results as fast as those characters on the CSI TV shows get them. That would sure make my life a whole lot easier."

"And Tony's, too," McGee chimed in, laughing at the thought of their lives as a TV show. Absurd. If his life were a TV show then most likely Tony's story line within his plot would have a happy ending, but this was real life and the danger of him dying was very very real. He wondered how best to broach the topic of Tony's latest condition update from Gibbs to the forensic tech.

His lapse into silence had Abby's attention on him again.

"McGee…" she said it like his mother would have said it, implying all her concern and frustration for him in one word. "You need to rest."

"I'll rest when Tony is out of the woods." He pushed himself out of the chair and tried to ignore the stabbing pain that ripped through the lower half of his broken leg. He tried to hide it from Abby but she caught him.

"You're no good to anyone half awake, McGee. _Please_ take a few minutes to get some rest?" Her voice had gone high and pleading and she was looking at him with saucer eyes that had his resolve melting.

"Look Abbs, let me get a few things done and then I promise I'll find somewhere to lay down for an hour or two."

"You should go home."

"I can't. Gibbs calls in every hour to give me news."

"Speaking of our fearless leader, has he said anything about how Tony's doing? I hate being here and not there with everyone else." McGee knew he needed to pass along the information, it was such a weight to bear and he was so very tired, but he also wanted to spare his friend the knowledge that things weren't all sunshine and roses for their friend. In the end the need to know someone else was sharing in his dread of what might be overrode his desire to spare Abby's feelings.

"Gibbs told me his temperature is elevated and they're worried about pneumonia or an infection in one of his wounds. It's not good, Abbs." Her reaction was quick. The pain he'd tried to save her from raced across her face and sprang tears to her eyes. She didn't let them collect or linger though and wiped the gathered moisture away with the sleeve of her lab coat and nodded at him. The information had been absorbed, cataloged and rerouted. That was her way. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and with a promise to call the minute there was more news, crutched out into the hall and toward the elevator. He hit the call button angrily with the base of a crutch. Depositing himself awkwardly into the car, he hit the button for the autopsy floor with his elbow this time and mentally tried to will away the aching fatigue settling in around him. The doors did not open on Autopsy as he expected, instead onto interrogation and Director Vance stepped in.

"How's it going, McGee?" The director asked, hitting the button for their shared floor. McGee gave him a short rundown of where they stood and was thankful when Vance did not inquire after Tony. He didn't think he could give the news again.

"How are the interrogations going, Director?" It was a safe topic

"Jones isn't talking, but I'm hoping that the kid from the getaway car gives us something. How goes the search for Private Finch's evidence?" Even after all the years he'd worked with the man, McGee still felt unsure of himself and awkward around Director Vance. The man commanded attention and had a way of looking at you that both calculated and judged you at the same time. McGee had the odd feeling that he was being tested every time he was alone with the man.

"I'm running down the places he visited in the past few days, trying to get some ideas on where to send Dorneget out to look. I should hopefully have something soon." He tried to put energy behind his words but they fell flat. He had a feeling that even if he was able to wrestle up a viable lead it would not shake the fatigue from his shoulders or change the fact that Tony was in the hospital near death. This whole ordeal had begun with the deaths of a mother and her son and now one of Tia and Michael Finch's murderers were cold and dead in autopsy. He should take comfort in that, feel like justice had been served even if it wasn't he who had put the bullet through Miguel Martinez' skull. So why did he feel like this? Too many lose ends, he decided. He wanted the Knights Templar brought down. He wanted to see the DC Angels laid to waste beneath his feet. Timothy McGee wanted fire and brimstone from the sky, a sign from heaven that this violence and hatred and dishonor was not to be born. But in the end, all he had was a simmering anger in his gut and a quest to find missing evidence then get his ass back to Bethesda.

The elevator let McGee off at his floor and a suggestion to get some sleep from Vance followed him out into the hall. Before the doors to the elevator closed, McGee offered a quick thanks to the director for sending him...was that kid's name Brandon? Vance nodded and disappeared with a ding.

Palmer was sitting in his chair finishing a report when McGee crutched into the sterile room. The young assistant ME looked up at him and offered a friendly smile. He looked about as tired as McGee felt but before McGee could voice the thought, Palmer was up out of his seat.

"I'm sorry, Tim but I didn't find anything that really stood out on either Martinez or Finch but I got Abby everything I collected."

"She told me. Thanks Palmer. I think I really just needed a few minutes away from the computer."

"I can understand that. Is there any new news?" He couldn't do it again. He just couldn't and luckily the shrill ring of the phone on Ducky's desk saved him from having to.

"Autopsy," Palmer answered with more authority than McGee had ever heard come from the man.

"He's right here, hold on." Palmer put his and over the receiver and held it out to McGee. "It's some kid named Brett… or maybe Brandt… He wants to talk to you." McGee took the handset from Palmer.

"Yeah, this is McGee." His voice, he noted, commanded no authority tonight. "Alright, I'll be right up." He hung up the phone and gave Palmer a quick thank you before crutching back to the elevator. The kid from Tech (he really wished he could remember his damn name) had something for him and McGee was not going to waste any time finding out what that was. In his haste he almost fell getting off at the bullpen floor. He crutched over hurriedly and did not expect the unfamiliar civilian speaking to Brendan (maybe?) over Ziva's desk. The kid from Tech was on his feet as McGee approached.

"Agent McGee, sir, this is Hector Ramirez. He worked with Private Finch at the loading docks at Quantico." McGee shook the man's hand, confused as to why the elderly gentlemen was there at NCIS.

"Hope you'll forgive me for coming down here without calling. I probably should have as it took me ages to get past your security."

"It's no problem," McGee said, offering the man Tony's chair after retrieving it from behind the agent's desk with a twinge of guilt. The man refused it. "What can I do for you Mr. Ramirez?"

"I worked with Simon at the loading docks. He and I had gotten to be good friends. I work in the office, you see. Too old to be lugging those crates around anymore and Simon, well Simon always took the time to come in and have a cup of coffee with me when we had the same shifts. He was a good kid. We're all sorry to hear that he's passed." McGee could tell the sentiment was real, but he wondered why the man had come all this way just to tell McGee that Finch was an ok guy.

"You're probably wondering what I'm doing here," the man said, evidently reading McGee's thoughts. "When I got into the office today, I found a package in my locker. Simon had left it for me and when I read what was inside, I knew I had to get it to you."

Brandt (that was it!) passed McGee the package and he held it in his hands, the weight of what it might be making his hands tremor slightly. It was a large padded US Mail envelope that bulged with its contents. His clumsy fingers fumbled with the adhesive flap that closed the envelope at the top and he suddenly needed to sit down. It was all threatening to collapse him. He took the seat Mr. Ramirez had refused. Finally the sticky flap pulled free and the first thing he pulled out was a hastily scribbled letter.

'_Dear Agent Gibbs,_' it began and he looked up at the faces of Hector Ramirez and Brandt from Tech, realization of what he held finally reaching his face. Brandt gave him a nod of understanding and rounded Ziva's desk to pull Mr. Ramirez away. McGee needed to be alone for this. Before the elderly gentlemen would allow himself to be pulled away, he addressed McGee one more time.

"Simon really was a good kid. I hope you'll honor his memory and treat his body with respect." With those words, the man allowed Brandt to lead him from the bullpen. McGee closed his eyes and tried to calm his pounding heart. He lifted the letter and began to read.

_Dear Special Agent Gibbs,_

_I'm not really sure how to do this, how to seek forgiveness from a man I don't know. But, by the time you read this letter, I'll likely be dead. I go to meet the men who murdered my family soon and I don't expect I'll make it back so I can't do this face to face with you like I want, like my training as a Marine demands, and a letter will have to suffice._

_The first thing you need to know is that I loved my wife and son very much. They were my entire universe and the only thing I ever got right in my life. I never was much of a Marine for my country or a son to my parents but I got it right with Tia and Michael. To know that my decisions cost them their lives... well, if I didn't think the men I'm going to meet tonight would do it for me, I'd be putting bullet into my own brain._

_I wish you could have known them. My Tia, she was so kind and gentle and gave everything and expected nothing back. And my Michael, he was the most precocious child I'd ever met and I was just starting to get to know him. He'd just reached that age where they get interesting, you know? When they finally start to have real conversations with you and you get a glimpse of the men they will become? I imagine sometimes the conversations I'll miss with him. We'll never talk about girls or how to deal with bullies or how to make his mother smile. These are the things I will miss and there is no one to blame but myself. I got into bed with the devil and I paid the ultimate price when all I wanted to do was protect them._

_I know what I'm walking into tonight. When the men I'm going to meet realize that this envelope is not in my possession but on its way to you, I'm a dead man. It's what I deserve and I accept that. I don't know where to begin to atone for my sins but I hope passing this envelope along to you is at least a start._

_Enclosed is everything I managed to collect on the Knights Templar and the D.C. Angels. I'm going to assume that your team is as smart as my mother suggested and that you know all about these organizations. If I fail to kill him tonight, Miguel Martinez is the one you should look for first. I know that I should let you handle things and turn this evidence over to you and let justice take its course, but he crushed in my son's skull and stabbed my wife to death. I'm entitled to enact my revenge. You'll find a recording in here where he describes what he did to them. Listen to it and you'll understand. You'll also find the names and serial numbers of several Marines stationed at the Marine base in San Diego. Martinez set up a drug smuggling ring from San Diego to Quantico and they've been smuggling weapons and drugs from California to D.C. for months. There are more names I couldn't get of Marines on that base that are in on it so don't stop till you find how far up the ladder it all goes. I think it might go all the way up to the top but I wasn't able to find any proof. _

_You're also going to find photos of Martinez with a man named Darius Jones. Darius is the leader of the D.C. Angels but he'll try to play that he's not. Don't let him fool you. Darius and Martinez have been working together to distribute the drugs and were working on a deal to merge the Angels and the Knights together. Darius lives with an Uncle near the 5th Ward. That's where I would start looking if I were you, if I don't get to him first._

_I hope you have a good tech guy because I've got about a hundred hours of recorded conversations between me and every Angel member I could get to talk to me. There's info on past crimes, people they've killed, members I never met. You should have everything you need to keep your prosecuting attorneys busy for years. The Knights Templar member's were a little harder to pin down but I think I've gotten you enough to dismantle their D.C. operations for good._

_I've also given you all the paperwork I faked and signatures I forged at the Industrial Supply Center. Hector is responsible for a lot of this stuff so it's important that you make sure he's not fired for what I've done. Hector is an amazing man and doesn't deserve to be in the position I've put him in. Please protect him. The paperwork is going to show you every shipment I intercept them and I started making notations on what each shipment was (weapons, drugs, sometimes even cash) once I started opening each of them._

_Please take what I've given you and bring all those bastards down. My family is not the first one they've done this to and will likely not be the last if you don't do this right. I have one final request before I close this letter. Perhaps you'll grant a dying man this one last thing? I know I don't have any right to ask it of you, but my mother told me you were a good man with a good head on your shoulders. Please tell her that I love her. I'm going to call her before I leave tonight and I know I won't have time to say what I need to say. We're all we have left in this world and soon I suspect I'll leave her alone in it. This is what I need her to know:_

_Mama, thank you for always believing in me and for protecting me and for teaching me how to love. I took what you taught and tried to give it back to Tia and Michael ten-fold. I think it worked. Thank you for protecting me from the Admiral and know that I never blamed you for one second when he sent me away. Your letters were the only thing that got me through that military school. I'll always love you._

_Thank you Agent Gibbs. If you're a former Marine like my mother said, then I know you'll honor my request. Please bring every last one of them down, Agent Gibbs. Please let my family's deaths not be in vain. Please keep the memory that they lived alive in your heart, my mother will need the help._

_Sincerely,_

_Simon Sydney Finch, Private 1st Class_

The letter ended and McGee blinked back moisture. How he had any tears left after his scene in the elevator he wasn't sure but Private Finch's final words were threatening to break through the damn he'd just managed to reconstruct. McGee lay the letter on Ziva's desk and tried to process what he'd just read. He felt a deep sense of mourning wash over him and he missed his mother. He was feeling for the man that had started the dominos falling, the dominos that now ended in a fallen line at his feet. No, not at his feet, at the edge of Tony's hospital bed.

He dumped the envelope's contents out onto the desk and stared at the papers, flash drives, loose photos and scribbled notes that fell out. It was a gold mine, albeit a messy one and there was hours of work before him but he didn't care. His promise to Abby forgotten, he tucked his chair in on the wrong side of Ziva's desk and began to disassemble the mess.

Abby would find him there, hours later with head on arm in a restless and fitful sleep. She would reach for his phone to check for messages from Gibbs and find none. She would maybe think it odd or maybe think McGee had just taken the calls as they'd come and caught Zzz's in between the rings. Maybe she would think nothing of it and leave him to his dreams. But his dream's are drenched in blood and Tony's face swims back and forth between the nightmares.

* * *

_Author's note: I teared myself up while writing this one. McGee's scene in the elevator and the letter that he reads... well let's just say I didn't pull those bits completely out of thin air. This was a rough chapter to write, please let me know what you think. Oh, and I hope you like Brandt. I kept forgetting his name and then I just had fun with it after that._


	19. Chapter 19

_A hospital is not his element. He prefers the quiet of a good, clean, morgue to the constant movement and noise of hospital halls. Where he comes from, the visitors are always courteous and well mannered, great listeners and only occasionally mess his floors. And when they do, it's often his fault anyway. Though, he supposes, there must be some contentment to be gleaned from when the hospital patients open their mouths and speak to their ailments rather than leaving him to dig, no pun intended, for the cause as he must do with his corpses._

_Anthony, however, cannot open his mouth and speak to what's ailing him. Another day dawns in the ICU and he's witness to a struggle. A struggle for life and his heart aches because of it. Not the breath stealing ache of attack but the bone numbing ache of loss. Tony's fever is impossibly high. His skin is hot and paper dry as if with one gentle touch, the cells would lose their form and Tony would implode inward in a cloud of ash. What holds him together as the fever rages and his body begins its exodus? _

_In a rare moment of silence he finds himself alone with Anthony and a dozing Jethro. But they're never really alone. Machines have taken over the space so much so that he wonders how much of Tony is really left. _

_The heat emanating off the boy is alarming. He pulls himself away from beside bed and fills a basin with tepid water. He grabs a fresh towel and begins to bathe Anthony's forehead, all the while feeling Jethro's gaze upon him. The method may seem archaic, but the soothing wetness of the cloth in his hand is relieving more than just the fevered feel of Anthony's skin. _

_"What will happen when he goes, Duck?" There is more vulnerability in that sentence than his friend has shown in a lifetime and Ducky cowardly avoids the pleading and desperate gaze. The whoosh of intake, the hiss of expulsion. It is a delicate rhythm and one he will not, cannot, tempt with a divination into the possible ending of this madness. _

_Leroy Jethro Gibbs in tears. Ducky thinks he prefers a raging Gibbs to this one who's asking impossible questions._

_The alarms save him from having to answer. Seizure has the basin falling from his hands and onto the floor and he knows what this is. He wants to help, but they are dumped unceremoniously out into the hall. He knows what comes next, what the sounds coming from the curtained room mean, and he pulls his friend away._

* * *

Author's note: I'm sorry for the delay in posting the next chapters. I know how much you guys are anticipating what's going to happen next. I'm completely rewriting my next chapter and its taking a little longer than I expected. I'll hopefully have everything to my liking by tomorrow. In the meantime, I'd love to hear about how you're enjoying the story so far!


	20. Chapter 20

Gibbs unfolded himself from the chair he'd placed just inside the curtain of the ICU room and stood up to stretch. The joints in his body popped and protested loudly and reminded him of where he was and just how old his body felt at the moment. The lights in the room he stood in were low. One of Tony's nurses (Bernadette, the board reminded him) had taken it upon herself to lower the lights at night and brighten them again during the day. There were no windows in Tony's room to tell the passage of time by the light so her reminder to them that time continued on was oddly comforting.

The nurses kept asking him if he needed anything but what he really needed they couldn't provide. Gibbs needed to build; he needed tools in his hands and the solitude of his basement because down there with his creations, things made sense. A piece had structure and if surprises cropped up he could adapt the design and it usually ended up the better for it. Here, in this room, surprises could very well mean death. When he built a boat or a piece of furniture, if things didn't turn out right he didn't feel bad about discarding it to start over. He couldn't do that here and the frustration of it all was driving him mad. He walked over to Tony's bedside and tried not to imagine what might come next in all of this.

Gibbs still couldn't get over how strange it was to see Tony so still. His agent had always been in a perpetual state of motion and to see him at rest for so long was unnerving and had Gibbs nearly bolting for the door every time he approached his unconscious agent. The word Gibbs' mind kept giving to what Tony was doing was 'sleep.' It was the only thing that seemed plausible at times so he held onto it whenever he could. The only thing that undid the thought was the tube still protruding from Tony's mouth and the persistent and ever present mechanical whoosh of artificial respiration. It was funny that the one thing keeping Tony alive might also kill him in the end.

Everything had been going so well yesterday. Dr. Pitt had been in and out of the room talking about improving vital signs and stabilizing oxygen levels until finally he mentioned reducing Tony's sedation and taking him off the vent. It was only then that Gibbs had reluctantly let Vance pull McGee and Abby away back to NCIS. It was a time before Tony's temperature began to rise and nurses began whispering 'pneumonia' when they thought he wasn't listening. It was a time before there were signs his kidneys were beginning to fail and the only person who would look at him and tell it to him straight was Dr. Pitt but that was bittersweet. With Dr. Pitt there was no buffer between himself and the truth and between Pitt and Ducky's directness, he couldn't pretend this all wasn't so bad.

They'd explained to him that the longer Tony was on the vent, the higher his chances of developing pneumonia got and Gibbs didn't need any explanation on what that disease could do to Tony's already damaged lungs. Tony had to be careful even in his regular every daily life to control colds and upper respiratory infections because if he ignored them and they developed into something worse he could be in serious trouble. How was he supposed to fight off infection when his body had been damaged so catastrophically? Tony was on the brink of breakdown and had been straddling that precipice for so many hours Gibbs couldn't count them all anymore. The internal injuries Ducky had sat him down and explained as best he could in laymen's terms had Gibbs wondering how his agent had held on for this long with such forces working against him. The memory of his pleading order to hold on came to mind and Gibbs pushed the thoughts back down.

They were waiting to hear the results of the latest battery of tests and this round seemed to be taking forever. Gibbs glanced to the clock on the wall behind him and tried to ignore the wave of guilt that washed over him. It was about the time he should have been making his hourly call to McGee but those promised calls every hour had slowly trickled down to a phone call every time they had something new and 'something new' had turned out to be an elusive creature. In his last call to McGee he'd told him of Tony's elevated temperature and the whispered fear that Tony was developing an infection but he hadn't had the heart call with the news about Tony's kidneys and slowly falling oxygen levels that all but confirmed he was headed towards pneumonia. The jury was still out on it all and until he had the actual proof in his hands, he wasn't about to worry McGee or Abby with the weight of the unknown.

Gibbs gently rested his hands on the rail of Tony's bed. If his agent was fighting infection he gave no outward appearance of that fight. His eyes occasionally moved beneath their lids with his dreams, but his features remained lax and he looked vulnerable and younger than his years. No, whatever was happening to Tony remained a war fought internally and Gibbs felt helpless against the weight of what was happening to his second in command and he couldn't escape it. No matter where he went in the hospital (even a little outside courtyard he'd discovered where his dinosaur of a phone got service) he was reminded of it. It was an ever present pressure in his chest that threatened to reduce him to tears. Except for a few stray collections of moisture at the corners of his eyes, he'd managed to hold that particular show of emotion at bay but he felt it bubbling up just below his surface, threatening to release at any moment. But Gibbs had to be strong, strong for Tony and strong for the other members of his team that weren't fighting for their lives but still felt battered and broken all the same. He felt divided somehow, one part of him wanting to be strong and the other part wanting to run.

"Agent Gibbs?" the doctor had approached his side cautiously, trying not to startle him. It didn't work but Gibbs hid the reaction under the hand that he hastily scrubbed over his face.

"Yeah?" He was tired and put no effort into the word.

"We got the results back on Tony's latest tests. Is Dr. Mallard around?"

"He went with Ziva to the cafeteria. They'll be back soon." His heart started pounding a staccato beat in his chest and he needed Ducky. He hadn't catalogued much of the medical jargon that had been bandied about since they'd arrived at the hospital, he'd put his faith in his ME to retain it all and explain it to him later. If Dr. Pitt was asking after Ducky then it couldn't be good.

"What's up, doc?" He could almost imagine the look Tony would have given him at the question and Gibbs' eyes darted to his agent's face with an irrational hope that Tony had, but there was nothing there. Tony continued on in his perpetual state of unconsciousness and Dr. Pitt shifted uncomfortably behind him. Gibbs dragged his eyes away from Tony's still form and turned his undivided attention on the doctor who was looking at him sympathetically.

"The test results have confirmed it. Tony's developed pneumonia." Gibbs could appreciate the doctor's efforts to be upfront like he'd promised days ago, but some news still needed cushion, even if Gibbs didn't think he needed it. "They also confirmed that Tony's in the early stages of renal failure and that's not a good sign."

"Why?" Gibbs knew enough to know the renal failure meant Tony's kidneys; it was the mechanics of it all he didn't comprehend. Ducky should have been there with him. Ducky was the one who knew the right questions to ask though Gibbs suspected Dr. Pitt was attempting to dumb it down for him as best he could.

"Tony's body has suffered a tremendous trauma. If what Dr. Wilder told me is true, it's a miracle that he even survived surgery and now his body is weak and his immune system is compromised. It can't fight infection like it could say if he were healthy and didn't have the other injuries complicating things. If his body can't control the infection there's a chance it spreads to other organs. His kidney failure is a sign that that's happened and if the infection makes into Tony's blood stream, there's a good chance his system won't be able to handle it. Sepsis will set in and his organs will begin shutting down one by one until…"

Gibbs understood. What he didn't understand was why fate had decided to choose this moment, this particular moment when he was alone, to drop a bombshell like that. He wondered if the coming explosion would be nuclear and what the fallout might be but an eerie calm descended down around him and the blast didn't come.

"What do we do now?" He hardly recognized the voice that came from his mouth.

"Now we're going to try and track down the particular strain of bacteria that's causing the pneumonia and we're going to hit it with everything we've got. I'm going to monitor his kidneys; he'll need to go on dialysis soon if things don't improve."

"This 'sepsis' thing," Gibbs started, the word was hanging between them ominously like a portent of doom, "it hasn't happed yet?"

"No, not yet. We'll keep a close eye on him and keep fighting the pneumonia with antibiotics. I'll go find Dr. Mallard and give him the news." Pitt began to leave but Gibbs stopped him.

"Don't bother, Doc. I was going to go find them anyway." It was half true and Dr. Pitt nodded. Gibbs could hear the odd eerie calm paint his words steady, but Gibbs could also feel something beginning to boil down in a place at the bottom of himself he normally never visited. He needed to find an open space and fresh air soon before it erupted. Gibbs glanced over one last time to Tony, willing his agent to keep holding on until he got back then made his way towards the exit.

He pressed the button that controlled the automatic double doors and a sudden vortex of air pulled at his pant legs then blasted him with a sterile smelling wind. It was a strange anomaly that had him cringing every time he had to pass through the damn things but he made himself walk forward then stopped in the hall. He had a decision to make: escape out into the fresh air of the small courtyard he'd found near ICU or go in search of Ducky and Ziva like he's promised Dr. Pitt. His mutinous feet drew him outside and into the predawn air and by the time he was in the courtyard the coming storm was upon him.

Since when did Leroy Jethro Gibbs shy away from a difficult situation? When did he lose his ability to stand outside in the storm and not be moved? He built boats for christ's sake! He knew how to batten down hatches and protect against angry seas, so why was all of this changing who he was at his core? He used to be able to detach, even when it came to his team, but they had all absorbed themselves into the boards of his deck and changed the shape of the wood. Now the deck had holes and nothing fit the way it used to and emotions could well up like water with no warning. It was maddening.

The Gibbs he was before all of this would have marched out immediately to find Ducky and Ziva without hesitation but he had run from it, something he'd never done in his life before (that he would admit. Mexico was _not_ running). The man he was before would have called McGee and Abby next to give them the news. Shit, the man he was before would have kept them in the loop all along like he'd promised. But this thing with Tony, the thought of losing him, it was making him do things that didn't make sense and it was all taking him apart from the inside, dismantling him at a molecular level. Maybe he really was changed and maybe it had been inevitable.

Gibbs wrapped his arms around himself and tried to control the shaking, something he hadn't done since right after Shannon and Kelly had gone. He couldn't take going through something like that again yet here it was and he was running as fast as he could in the other direction away from who he needed to be for Tony. What happened to that Gibbs from before? Maybe it was time to bring him back.

That was it.

He dropped the arms from around himself and squared his shoulders in determination. It was time to prove he really was that Gibbs from before and march into the ICU and into Tony's room to sit in his chair just inside the curtain and watch to see if his subordinate lived or died.

His clenched his good fist.

It made no difference to Gibbs From Before if Tony died. There were 100s of Anthony DiNozzo's out there, some who would do the job better and if he died Gibbs From Before would have no problem replacing him.

The anger inside caught fire and spread.

Gibbs From Before could replace them all.

The force inside of him exploded. He let out into the air a roar from so far deep down below he didn't know he went that far and blackness invaded his vision. His heart pounded out of his chest, he drew back a fist, realizing too late which one it was, and put all of his weight behind a punch to the brick. Pain exploded from his hand. Spots invaded the blackness behind his eyes and another cry was pulled from his lips as he clutched the injured hand to his chest.

"GIBBS! You're not him anymore!"

It was Tony's voice in his head and something shifted then disconnected in his chest. He deflated instantly and all the rage left him like the tears that gathered then broke to run down his face and pepper the ground. The force of its loss bent him over, his hands on his knees the only thing keep him vertical. He fought for control, tried to focus on the tears that dripped from the end of his nose and onto the brick courtyard floor.

He was kidding himself. Gibbs From Before had inhabited the shell that he was for a time after Shannon and Kelly had died and Tony had carved him out and put the human bits back. Gibbs From Before had been decimated the moment that stupid kid from Baltimore with a penchant for movie plots walked into his life.

"God, kid. Don't do this to me." he let go of it all in that moment and emptied his pain out onto the ground through his eyes.

Minutes or hours passed, he couldn't tell, but eventually the coolness of the early morning air brought him back to a realization of himself. He was stooped in the courtyard strung so tight that when he slowly released the tension from his frame, every muscle and joint ached from the strain. It had taken an age but eventually he was able regain control of his breathing and pulled in a lungful of air. When he felt it safe to right himself, he straightened and looked at his hand. He'd broken it, he was sure of it, and the pain surged and reminded him he was still human and still very much alive. Of all the things that he could have done, Gibbs started to laugh.

Tony was right. He wasn't that Gibbs From Before but that part of him wasn't completely gone either. With the sudden clarity that often came with epiphanies he suddenly understood. The balance he was so desperately seeking was going to come in taking the bits of himself from across his lifetime and putting them all together in the same toolbox but each with its own separate drawer. It wasn't about shedding parts of himself, it was about keeping everything organized together but separate, marked and labeled so he could pull out what ever Gibbs was needed at a moment's notice and still put each one away at the end of the day without losing them. That was how he survived. That was what was going to get him and his team through this. So he rummaged through the drawers and pulled out the calm controlled Gibbs who could do what needed to be done.

He didn't have to look for Ducky and Ziva long. He met them in the hall and Ziva was at his side in an instant, lifting his hand to inspect the new damage he'd done. The bandage wrapping around his hand was torn and fresh blood had absorbed through the thin material to stain the fabric bright red. Ducky was staring at him and Gibbs knew the wreckage of what he'd just been though stood out on his face. It was like a car crash you couldn't take your eyes off, so out of the ordinary you couldn't help but stare. His embarrassment at the evidence of his soiree with madness being so blatantly on display had Gibbs averting his eyes and allowing Ziva to fuss over his hand.

"Gibbs, what has happened?" She asked, concerned eyes meeting his. The concern deepened when she noticed the remnants of the fight on his face. Shit.

"Went two rounds with a brick wall. It's okay." He flexed the abused hand to prove it to her but the bones shifted and a bolt of pain shot up his arm. Ducky saw him flinch and pushed Ziva gently away to examine the hand himself. He made quick work of the ace bandage and pulled it away to reveal the mangled remnants of his knuckles.

"Good grief, Jethro! What have you done?" Gibbs looked down at the carnage then back up to Ducky, not knowing what to say. He couldn't exactly explain what had just happened to him back in the courtyard, it was something just for him and he wouldn't be able to make them understand anyway. For as simple a man as he appeared to be, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was incredibly complex, he just never bothered to show it.

"Needed to blow off some steam, I guess." There was the Gibbs everyone knew and loved.

"Well, I think you've broken it. We'll need to get this x-rayed." Ducky made to pull Gibbs away but he stayed rooted to the floor. Thanks to his epiphany, repeating what Dr. Pitt had told him about Tony's condition came easy. This was the time to be strong for his team and he pulled out the Gibbs who was strong and could deliver tough news.

"Duck." The soft spoken word had his ME turning back around to face him with a questioning look. "I spoke to Pitt a few minutes ago." Ziva stepped in closer.

"Tests came back. Its pneumonia and the beginning stages of renal failure." Gibbs watched Ducky's eyes go wide in shock and then turn sad, hating himself for putting that sadness there. Ziva sniffed beside him and Gibbs put an arm around her, pulling her close.

In the end it was decided by Tony's nurse that Gibbs would go to radiology while Ducky went off for more answers and Ziva stayed with Tony. The Israeli had remained unusually quiet and had only asked a few clarifying questions about Tony's condition and Gibbs was reluctant to leave her alone. His hand was broken and they needed to x-ray then set it so he reluctantly allowed the nurse to pull him away to radiology. His hand was beginning to throb with every beat of his heart but he welcomed the pain and knew he would refuse medication to dull it. The pain kept him focused and it kept him clear for what he would have to do in the long hours to come.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

As he had suspected, the x-rays showed several hairline fractures to a few of the bones in his hand but it was nothing a couple of weeks in a cast wouldn't cure and Gibbs found himself on his way back up to ICU with the lower half of his hand encased in plaster. They'd tried to give him pain medication but the prescription he could fill at the hospital pharmacy sat forgotten in the pocket of his pants. Gibbs studied the plaster starting at the base of his wrist covering up to his knuckles. Unlike McGee and Tony's, his new adornment was dark blue with a raised pattern that left nowhere for Tony to mark. He tried to imagine what drew Tony to want to write all over plaster but just couldn't see the point. Thoughts of his critically ill agent had Gibbs quickening his pace.

He'd been gone for too long and thoughts of what might have happened in his absence had him setting a brisk pace down the halls. They would have come and gotten him the moment something went south, right? Then why was his mind playing out scenarios in his head where walked into the room to find Tony dead? The thought of his agent leaving when he hadn't been there to say his goodbyes had Gibbs all but running through the maze of corridors from Radiology to Intensive Care. He found his way back after a few wrong turns and punched impatiently at the button to enter the ICU with his good hand. Not even the anticipation of that weird little burst of sterile air was going to keep him from getting back to Tony and see for himself that Tony still lived. In the back of his mind he recalled the phone call he was supposed to make to McGee and Abby but it would just have to wait. He had to see. He had to be sure.

He found the room quiet and dark and almost how he had left it. The only change was the addition of the dialysis machine that had appeared in the room while he was gone. The monitors still took vitals and Tony was still alive. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and took in the scene before him.

The addition of the dialysis machine in the room had completed a kind of circle around Tony's bed and his agent was adrift in a sea of technology. The effect had the bed and the figure entombed there looking small and lost. With all the machines, Gibbs wondered how much of Tony could really be left. Ducky was lightly snoring in the chair just inside the curtain and Ziva was standing at the rail of Tony's bed, her fingers brushing back DiNozzo's hair as she quietly sang. Gibbs expected her to stop and turn but Ziva hummed on and showed no signs she knew he was there. If he was able to walk up on the former Mossad agent unnoticed, then Ziva was worse off than Gibbs had thought. He stayed where he was and listened to what she was saying.

Shluf, mein faygele,  
Mach tzu dein eygele,  
Ai-lu-lu-lu.  
Shluf geshmak mein kind,  
Shluf un zei gezund,  
Ai-lu-lu-lu.  
Shluf un cholem zees,  
Fun der velt genees,  
Ai-lu-lu-lu.  
Kol z'man du bist yung,  
Kenst-du shlofen gring,  
Lachen fun als-ding,  
Ai-lu-lu.

When she had finished he quietly walked to her side.

"Ziva," he pulled on every bit of gentleness he had to say her name and Ziva turned her red rimmed eyes to him. A tear released and rolled.

"It is a lullaby my mother used to sing to Ari, Tali and I. Sleep, My Little Bird. He looks like he's sleeping." Ziva looked back to Tony and ran her hand again through the hair at his forehead.

"I try to get it to stay off his face, but it always ends up back on his forehead. I keep thinking how much it would bother him that he does not look his best. He would want to impress the nurses."

Gibbs stayed silent.

"I think in the past few years he's changed though. He used to always want to be in fancy cars and brand name suits but lately it's as if he's..."

"Matured?" Gibbs suggested and Ziva's shoulders shook in what he thought was a laugh.

"Yes. That is it exactly."

They sat for a moment in silence, neither needing to fill the space around them with useless words. Gibbs had found a kindred spirit at last and he had almost forgotten she was there. The trouble with Ziva (and himself, too) was that she internalized too much. When she was open and honest with those around her, that was the Ziva who excelled as an agent and the one who people wanted to have watch their backs. He supposed he should take some of his own advice but it took more than an epiphany in a hall for a functioning mute to reconstruct from the ground up. Ziva had a tendency to close up and shutter the windows anytime it came to feeling something, be it grief, fear, love... He took that word and rolled it around on his tongue and watched Ziva lace her fingers with Tony's. His gut came alive.

The feeling was odd. His patented Gibbs Gut had been silent for the better part of a week and now it was pile driving into him with all the grace of a bulldozer, hypersensitive from disuse. Maybe that was the reason why nothing had made sense ever since the whole mess with Private Simon Finch had started. His gut had stayed silent throughout the entire mess and he'd managed to miss-read about every aspect of the case. But what was really bothering him, the more he thought about it, was the fact that he'd failed to feel it when Miguel Martinez had taken Tony. His gut hadn't given him an inkling that anything was wrong until Ducky had asked after Tony and Gibbs couldn't find his face in the crowd. He hoped the sign of life he was feeling now was the start of that integral part of him returning. Tony and Ziva...

"Ziva..." he reached out a hand to touch her shoulder but an alarm sounded from the monitor above Tony's head and stopped him. Lights began to flash and Ziva pulled her hands away from the railing of the bed as if she'd been shocked and backed away. Worried eyes met his own and Ducky was beside them in a flash and whatever his gut had been trying to tell him before was forgotten in the panic.

"Damn it!" was all Ducky got out before two nurses came in and pushed them all from Tony's room and into the hall without explanation. Another doctor, not Pitt, was paged and he passed them hurriedly to disappear into the room they had just been evicted from. The doctor closed the curtain behind him and Gibbs turned to Ducky for an explanation.

"The alarm was for his blood pressure." the doctor answered without being asked. "They'll likely give him more volume... blood, sorry."

"Is this it?" Gibbs asked, fighting to dislodge his heart from his throat, thankful when it fell back into place when Ducky shook his head.

"No, there are things they can do. Medicines they can give him." Gibbs searched Ducky's face for truth and decided the steely gaze meeting his wasn't lying. He listened to the commotion in the curtained room and tried to pick up on what was being said but the voices were too low. After a few tense minutes a nurse came out of the room on her way back in to the nurses' station and she paused as if surprised to see them still standing there.

"He's okay for now. Why don't you guys go to the waiting room or get something from the cafeteria and I'll come get you when you can go back in." Gibbs was about to argue, make his case to be allowed back in, but the nurse seemed to sense what was coming and put up her hands to stop him.

"I promise. We need some time to clean his wounds and change the bed sheets. I know you want to be in there with him right now but think of your friend and maybe give him just this little bit of privacy." Gibbs dropped the intimidating front he'd pulled up and hung his head in defeat. Gibbs couldn't argue with what the nurse had said and offered an apologetic smile to the young girl who only moved off once Gibbs and the others started for the exit.

The ICU waiting room was like another world when they reached it. The colors were brighter and the noises were sharper and there was an airiness Gibbs hadn't noticed before. It was hard to notice things like that when the light was dim and it was the middle of the night and he was stuck in the room without answers. No, it was different this time. The decor was cheery and homey and there was a TV room off to the left where a boy and his father were watching early morning cartoons behind a closed glass door to muffle the noise. Every few moments the young boy laughed and his father looked down at the top of the head resting on his chest and smiled sadly. Gibbs turned away from the scene. This room had windows and he stood in the weak light of early morning and wished he could open one to the fresh air. He didn't think he could ever go back into that little courtyard he'd found now. He'd left something back there that he wasn't interesting in replacing back in his chest.

Ziva took a seat out of the sightline of the father and son moment happening in the TV room and Ducky took the chair beside her. Gibbs was reluctant to leave his place by the window but eventually he moved off to take the empty seat beside Ziva. He needed to be close to these people. They were a link to sanity and a link to how things were before a psychopath had carved out Tony's insides with a knife.

"You know what I keep thinking of?" Ziva said suddenly, startling Gibbs from his thoughts. "I keep remembering this time a group of us went out for drinks when I had just become Liaison at NCIS. Our group was laughing and having a good time and I wanted to ask Ned Dorneget a question. I couldn't recall his first name so I asked Tony. He told me and for 5 minutes I tried to get Dorneget's attention but he kept ignoring me to talk to a woman beside him. I got so mad and started to rebuke him when McGee pulled me aside and explained that his name was not 'George'. Tony laughed till he was green in the face." Gibbs didn't stop the chuckle that waded its way out through his fears and Ducky snorted beside him.

"I remember a time Anthony came down to autopsy after you'd sent him down to get answers from me, Jethro. I was working over a body and moved away to get what he wanted and he decided to take a look at the corpse. Just as he leaned over the body it twitched, as they will do from time to time. The boy was startled so badly that he sent my instrument tray flying and must have jumped at least three feet into the air. Palmer and I laughed over it for months, much to young Anthony's chagrin." Ducky's memory had them all laughing and the sound bounced around the room, brightening along with the growing sun of morning.

Gibbs could sense his turn to wax poetic had come but everything he was remembering about Tony he couldn't put out into the open. It needed to stay inside, close to his heart where he could protect it. Out in the open there was a chance that something could be misplaced or forgotten. Ziva and Ducky didn't seem to mind his silence.

Sitting in the steadily brightening room, Gibbs almost felt rejuvenated and he remembered suddenly that he still hadn't called McGee or Abby and the call was long overdue. He pulled himself from his chair and gave a quick explanation of where he was going to Ziva and Ducky then went out into the hall. It took a bit but eventually he found a hallway where his phone showed signs of service. He wasn't about to return to his courtyard.

It was early in the morning of this his eighth day of hell and he hoped that his call would find McGee asleep at home and not still at NICS working through the Simon Finch evidence. True to form, McGee picked up on the second ring.

"'lo?" Gibbs could tell he'd woken him.

"McGee?"

"Yeah, boss? Som'thing hapn'? Gibbs heard the distinct sounds of paper shuffling but he bit back the admonishment on his tongue. McGee had a certain way of dealing with things and Gibbs was not about to get in his way.

"Are you still at NCIS?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah, been working on... oh shit! Is it really 7am!?" Gibbs fought back an exasperated laugh.

"It is."

"You haven't been trying to call have you?"

"No, McGee. You're fine."

"Oh." Silence.

"Did something happen? How's Tony."

There was no escaping the question. It was the question he'd pulled himself out into the hall knowing full well he'd have to answer but Gibbs couldn't bring himself to speak. Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose he rummaged around in the drawers again and pulled out the version of himself that could handle this. It took him too long and McGee picked up on his hesitation.

"Boss?" There were more emotions in that one little word than Gibbs would ever have thought possible. There was no turning back now.

"They confirmed its pneumonia and they're having some trouble keeping his blood pressure up and his kidney's functioning."

"And what does that mean?" McGee wasn't going to make this any easier for him.

"It means, McGee, that you and Abby should maybe think about coming over. Tony could use everyone in his court right now."

"Ok," the line went dead without farewell and Gibbs stood holding the phone to his ear listening to the connection go silent. He knew what McGee would do next. He would crutch down to Abby's lab and get his forensic tech in frenzy and then the two of them would barrel down the highway to get to Bethesda within the hour. Gibbs only hoped in their haste they would be careful. He couldn't handle more of his team in the hospital. Gibbs shook his head and flipped his phone shut with his good hand. When he got back to the waiting room, he was surprised to find Dr. Pitt there.

Ziva looked up when he reentered the waiting room and Gibbs could immediately tell she'd been crying again. His heart was back in his throat and Ducky wouldn't meet his gaze.

"What's going on?"

The doctor looked to but hesitated to speak. All the control Gibbs had attained in the past few hours was threatening to evaporate under the pity-filled look Dr. Pitt was giving him. He reminded himself to breathe.

"I'm sorry Agent Gibbs, there's just no easy way to say this."

'Never stopped you before,' Gibbs wanted to say but he kept the dialog internal.

"I was just in to see Tony and got some further results back from the lab. Tony's in renal failure and tests results show the infection has spread to his blood stream and into his heart. He's septic. I'm sorry."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Ziva asked to Dr. Pitt and Gibbs was glad someone had it together enough to ask. He was still trying to wrap his head around the enormity of what Pitt had just said.

"It means, my dear" Ducky answered sadly, "that our Anthony is very ill and will likely not pull through. We need to prepare ourselves." Gibbs insides hit the floor but somehow, he would never be able to say how exactly, he was able to push away the all-encompassing anguish that was threatening to shut him down completely and held himself together, refusing to let it take him.

"McGee and Abby?" Ziva's eyes turned to Gibbs. He pushed back the urge to scream then nodded, acknowledging that he'd called.

"They'll be here soon."

Ziva landed with a plop in a chair and both he and Dr. Pitt moved forward to comfort her at the same time. A possessiveness Gibbs didn't understand roared to life in his chest and Pitt backed off immediately with a look of shock on his face. Gibbs recovered quickly and shot an apologetic look to the startled doctor before focusing his attention back on Ziva. His instincts rippled to life when he realized what he was seeing. Apparently this was a day for epiphanies because he realized suddenly that the possessiveness he had felt wasn't for a claim he laid on Ziva for himself, but of a claim he staked in Tony's name. Ziva was Tony's and he finally saw it.

She'd been following his rules, just like he'd expect them all to do and now she was paying for it and he'd done that to her. Understanding what Ziva was going through now, Gibbs sank to a knee beside the chair she was quaking in, cheeks wet with tears. She was losing Tony and had probably never told him how she felt. How his agent had managed to keep herself from coming completely undone before now, he had no idea but there was nothing left of Mossad in the girl who sat in the chair before him crying. There would never be a part of him that was ever going to be good with words so he hoped his presence would be enough. He reached up with his good hand and swept a tear away before cupping her cheek in his palm. Desperate eyes found his and she slid from the chair to her knees and into his arms. He worked hard against the forces trying their best to shake her apart and she sobbed into his neck, the tears warm on his skin.

Gibbs held her while she cried and he wanted to tell her it was going to be alright but he knew the platitude wouldn't be true and he wasn't about to lie. He was done with lies, there was only truth now and this is what he knew to be true: Ziva cried for Tony because she loved him. McGee cried for Tony because they'd become like brother's and Gibbs had cried for Tony because no parent should ever have to bury their child. All his years of trying to distance himself and it hadn't worked. Tony was the son he'd never had and the glue that held them all together and they were going to lose him.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

"McGee?"

"Yeah boss?"

"I'll come get you if anything changes."

He watched McGee retreat from the room then collapsed in the chair beside Tony's bed. It had been a rough few hours and he was happy for a quick moment of solitude with Tony even if it would only be for a short while. There had been a steady stream of visitors to Tony's beside ever since McGee, Abby and Vance had arrived and Tony's deteriorating condition was pulling in unfamiliar doctors and nurses as well. The only one missing was Palmer and he was off filling in for Ducky at a new crime scene. It was another reminder that the world went on without Tony in it and Gibbs resented the fact.

He wouldn't be alone with Tony for long. Ducky would join him again and he'd begin another shift of sitting and waiting. McGee and Abby had just left to give the ME his turn in Tony's room. The ICU staff had been great so far but there were a lot of them now and they'd quietly been asked to try and reduce the number of people marching through the ICU corridor. No one had the energy to argue and shifts had been established with Gibbs at the center of each but for the moment he was alone. Gathering all the strength he had left, he lifted himself up from the chair and stood over the still form of Tony. There was something he needed to do and he was running out of time to do it. He reached way down, almost to the place he'd visited in the courtyard all those hours ago and somehow, Gibbs found his words.

"DiNozzo?" He looked down over Tony and the tubes and the wires, past the monitors and the blinking lights and tried to picture Tony as he once was and tried not to let his emotions stop what needed to come out.

"Are you listening?" he looked for a response that he knew he wouldn't get so Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment and pictured Tony at his desk. He smiled at the thought, imaging Tony had just replaced the handset to his phone and sat ready to hear what Gibbs had to say, desperately trying to hold in the excitement of his own bit of news to relay.

"I'm going to tell you something and it's important that you listen. I know I never said it to you directly and probably never showed it much either, but… you… I should tell... God, why is this so hard?" He closed his eyes, took a breath to go on.

"What I'm trying to say is that you mean the world to me, Tony. Ever since I pulled you out from behind that desk in Baltimore, the world's never quite been the same." He knew the words, delivered haltingly and with little grace, weren't conveying the depth of it all but he'd never pretended to be good at this.

"I had my doubts about you at first. I thought, 'how was this cocky kid going to survive what I'm about to put him through?', but in the end you did and you did it in a way I didn't expect. You got yourself ingrained in my life, DiNozzo, that's not something not a lot of people have been able to do to me. I worked with you for a few years and one day I looked up and you were sick with the plague and I didn't react like a boss normally should. I felt like I would have if my own flesh and blood had been the one sick and I think that's when I really knew. Believe me, I tried to deny that you meant so much to me for a long time, but I had an epiphany out in the hall outside ICU a while ago and I decided I'm done trying so hard anymore. Discipline, control… they're worthless when someone you love is dying." He stopped and cleared his throat when the emotions threatened again and his hand went to Tony's face instinctively, something he used to do to Kelly, and the back of his hand brushed against the side of Tony's face. It came away wet. He didn't understand it, the wetness, and his eyes darted to the place his hand had picked up the moisture. A line of it fell from the side of Tony's closed eyes. Maybe it was from some medication coercing through his veins (he had enough in his system to bring down an elephant) or maybe it was just a natural process of the eye, but Gibbs took the tear to mean that Tony was hearing what he had to say. He bent down and brought his head close to Tony's, almost close enough to touch, and let the rest out in a rush.

"I know how hard you've been fighting, Tony. I've been watching you do it for days but it's okay now. It's okay if you need to let go. Everyone is here, so many people who love you, and I've got them, ok? If you need to go I've got them and I'll watch over them all when you're gone. There's nothing dishonorable in this death, Tony. You helped bring down those monsters; you helped avenge the deaths of that mother and her son.

I gave you an order back at that house and as far as I'm concerned you followed that order so you're relieved of duty, son. It's alright to leave if you need it. We'll be okay. I'll be okay. Don't be afraid," the last bit barely came out and he looked to the machines and the monitors looking for some sign that he'd killed Tony with his words, but nothing changed and he collapsed back into his chair with no more energy to stand.

"Jethro?"

Ducky had come in when he hadn't noticed and Gibbs buried his face in his hands. He didn't know how much Ducky had heard. Tears tried to form but he suspected he'd left all the tears his body was capable of producing back outside in his courtyard. Ducky came to stand beside him and offered nothing but silence. He was okay with that. Moments ago he'd been happy to have some time alone with Tony but after what he had spoken to his agent, the permission he'd given for him to go, he needed someone else there with him if Tony decided he was going to listen. It was just like DiNozzo not to listen and time continued to slip by slowly as it had a tendency to do in the ICU.

Gibbs scrubbed his face with his good hand and looked up at his ME, hoping to show with a look that he was okay for now and the good doctor could stand down. But Ducky wasn't looking at him. Instead he was studying Tony's vitals. Gibbs didn't know what most of the machinery in Tony's room did or what the information on their screens conveyed, but it was all taking up most of the space in Tony's room now. Some of it he could understand like the temperature reading that had reached 106 and the blinking red number that announced his oxygen levels and that would squawk in his ear every once in a while. Gibbs wanted to ask the doctor what would happen next, but his throat refused to work. Instead he sat in the suspended animation of the room and watched as Ducky filled a basin with water and found a path through the machines to reach the other side of Tony's bed. With careful motions he dipped the cloth into the water he held and started to sooth Tony's face with it. The moment was so tender and Gibbs couldn't tear his gaze away. What if it was Tony's last?

"What will it be like when he goes, Duck? He no longer had the strength to hold anything back and the words came out without permission along with the tears he didn't think he still had. The silence stretched out forever and Ducky didn't answer.

Gibbs needed to move. He tried to get up. Maybe a splash of water on his face would help, but something was keeping him in his chair. The hairs on the back of his hand started to rise and a sudden electricity in his body threatened to overload his circuits. Something was wrong and his eyes immediately darted to Tony's face. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so why had his instincts gone suddenly on red alert? He started to voice the feeling to Ducky but the intention died on his lips.

Tony began to convulse, his body spasming in violent jerks that sent the basin Ducky held clattering to the ground and a chorus of alarms sounding both from within the room and from outside at the nurses' station. Ducky was moving fast, trying to control Tony's movements so he wouldn't dislodge the wires or tubes covering most of his body. Gibbs tried to move in to help but a nurse had grabbed his arm and the impulse to fight her off came up hard and fast. He was seconds away from bellowing at her, for taking all his rage and frustration at what Tony was doing to put the woman through the glass, but one look at her concerned face had all of it dying inside him at once. He moved qaway, owning to the realization that she was what Tony needed now and he was in her way.

Tony was shaking loose his moorings and Gibbs was being pulled away unable to reach for Tony's lines and pull him back to shore. His back hit the glass and he realized he'd been steadily moving backwards away from what he was seeing but now there was nowhere else to go. The alarms continued and nothing the huddled mass around Tony's bed did was changing that. Gibbs eyes met Ducky's over the melee and he knew this was it.

Duck hadn't answered his question about how it would be when Tony went. Was this why? To save him from the utter uselessness he felt as other men fought to keep Tony alive, a task he thought would forever fall to him? He tried to calm the unchecked panic in his chest. He'd said his piece to Tony. If this was it, he'd said his goodbyes. When the heart beat stopped and was replaced by the long warning wail of cardiac arrest, Gibbs closed his eyes and he prayed.

* * *

_Author's note: Before you start trying to Google where I live and come after me, please know that there are still 2 chapters left to come and that anything is possible. This chapter was my most difficult to write, mostly because I kept bursting into tears while I tried to make it perfect._


	21. Chapter 21

_The elevator dinged and deposited a lone figure into the bullpen. His leg had been freed from its cast and he was reminded of a time, not long ago, when disembarking the elevator had been such a hassle. Now his leg was free to bend and move any which way he decided and it was an exhilarating feeling. A honey light was filtering in from the west facing windows and dusk was fast approaching. It was an interesting time to hold an outdoor memorial service, but he wasn't the one who planned everything so he would just go along with it._

_McGee found what he was looking for in the top drawer of Tony's desk. The Mighty Mouse stapler had been Tony's most prized possession so it was right that it was going where it was going. He held the miniature object in his hand and smiled at the memories it reminded him of: Tony's story of how he'd won it off an officer from Baltimore, the time McGee and Ziva had hidden as a joke… Those were moments you had to hold onto on days like today._

_Sighing, McGee pocketed the Mighty Max stapler and made his way back out into the fading sunshine and towards the graveyard._

_The road winding through the cemetery wasn't paved and his Taurus struggled up the hills until he finally found the corner of the graveyard he was looking for. He spotted the small group of mourners standing near the grave. He unfolded himself from out of his car, so happy that he could drive again he almost didn't want to get out from behind the wheel but there was something he had to do and he couldn't linger._

_The walk across the grass to the small gathered group was peaceful. The sinking sun was painting a riot of color across the sky and McGee's only wish was that Tony had been there to see it with him. That wasn't possible though, and he finally reached his destination._

_Abby, decked out in her Louisiana funeral finest noticed him first and walked over to throw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back putting everything he was feeling at the moment into the hug until they finally released at the same time._

_"Thank you for coming."_

_"I wouldn't miss it for the world."_

_Gibbs nodded to him when he caught his eyes and their stoic team leader looked as natural as always in jeans and blazer covering a dark blue polo shirt. Pure Gibbs. Ziva was simple in an unadorned black dress but even though McGee suspected she'd tried to find the most unflattering dress she could, her well-toned body still looked good in it. Abby slipped her arm around his and lead him over to the grave. Gibbs took a place beside Abby and Ziva took McGee's other arm and laid a head on his shoulder._

_They stared down at the gravestone atop a mound of earth that just was beginning to show signs of life. Small tendrils of green were peeking out and reaching for the sun, the circle of life on full display. McGee felt himself choke up a bit at the thought but he didn't have a free hand with Abby and Ziva on each arm to wipe away the evidence so he let it stay._

_They stood in silence for a few moments as the sun's rays began leaving their figures one by one and then Abby started the speeches._

_When it was all said and done and the sun was gone McGee untangled himself from Ziva and Abby and pulled the small stapler from his pocket and set it reverently on top of the stone. He walked away with the rest of them hoping that the little object would be left to lie and not be swept away by the crew who cleaned up the grounds. Mighty Mouse deserved more respect than that and so did the stapler's previous owner who would never hold it again. He thought about turning around and maybe burying the stapler in the soft earth but decided he liked it better where it was. He imagined Tony would have approved._


	22. Chapter 22

When 30 seconds had passed Gibbs made himself breathe again.

When two minutes had past, the small group around Tony's bedside disbanded and the doc said words he didn't absorb.

When an hour had past Gibbs regained the feeling in his legs and allowed Ducky to maneuver him into the chair just inside the curtain and someone put a cup of coffee in his hand.

When three hours had past he awoke with a start when Dr. Pitt entered the room and said something to him he couldn't process yet but the big empty nothing that had descended down around him cracked a little bit at the edges.

When five hours had past, he let the words in Ducky was trying to say to him and didn't stop the shake to his shoulders.

"Jethro, they need to get in here and take care of him. Will you come away? I think they all need to see you and hear it from you." Gibbs looked up at Ducky and his ME's face swam in front of his vision. Too many cups of coffee and not enough sleep. He tried to say ok but he didn't have the energy.

"Good grief, Jethro. Come on. It's to the waiting room and then somewhere quiet where you can sleep."

Gibbs let himself be pulled away toward the ICU waiting room, up from his chair just inside the curtain, through the doors with their weird little wind, down the hallway past his courtyard and to the door leading into the waiting room. Finding strength from somewhere, the last of his reserves he was sure, Gibbs pushed the door open and five pairs of anxious eyes were on him instantly. He felt like he was taking center stage and he'd never been good in the spotlight. Sapping the last of the energy from his cells he addressed them.

Most of it they already knew. Tony had gone into cardiac arrest and the doctors had somehow managed to get his heart beating again. They were tense moments Gibbs could barely remember, the shock of what he was seeing effecting him so greatly. When they finally managed to stabilize his agent, Dr. Pitt had been in to explain that they'd isolated the bacteria wreaking havoc on Tony's system and that IV antibiotics targeting the particular strain were being given to him immediately to see if they could get the infection under control. When someone went into sepsis, it was explained to Gibbs by Pitt then later by Ducky when Gibbs was able to process again, there was a 40-50% chance that Tony would die. So Tony had been pumped with so many medications, Gibbs imagined if he'd put Tony out to sea the kid would have floated away, and Tony's heart kept beating. Next there was the procedure to reduce the fluid around Tony's lungs and then the blood transfusions, even more medication trying to do for Tony what is own body couldn't and now they found themselves on hour five having caught the elusive creature 'something new' once more.

"Dr. Pitt said it's too early to think he's out of the woods yet but the antibiotics might be working, Tony's oxygen levels have started to climb," Abby was in his arms immediately, his sluggish brain slow on the uptake, and it took him a moment to smile and wrap his arms around her. She moved off to hug Palmer who'd returned from NCIS and Ziva took Abby's place in his embrace. Ducky took over for him.

"They're running blood tests every hour, but the improving oxygen levels are a start. There are still many things that could go wrong, but what we're seeing is a sign that he might be turning around." Vance started to ask Ducky more questions but the world was starting to falter for Gibbs and Ziva seemed to sense it and pulled away. A silent communication passed between them and, night having fallen, she deposited him in the dark unoccupied TV room with its big leather sofa and closed the door behind her. He didn't have enough left in him to argue and with thoughts that he would be better for his team if he were rested and functioning, Gibbs fell into a dreamless sleep. Ziva went off to take up his vigil in the chair just inside the curtain.

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

"Gibbs?" He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder then opened his eyes to see Abby perched on the side of the couch gently shaking him from sleep.

"What's up, Abbs? Did something happen?" He knew he should never have gone to sleep but he couldn't deny that the nap had helped. He bolted up from the couch and in the process knocked Abby from her place on the cushions and onto her butt on the floor. He expected his tired and emotional Forensic Tech to start to cry but Abby began to laugh instead. It was infectious and he found himself chuckling as he helped her up from the floor.

"Sorry, Abbs" he laughed and gave her a quick kiss to the cheek. "How long was I out?"

"About three hours. Ducky wanted me to come get you. Vance got called back to NCIS and Palmer went with him. You should really talk to him later Gibbs, I think he's really upset about everything that's happened." Gibbs hadn't thought much about it but Jimmy Palmer, while not an integral part of his team, had managed to find a soft place in his heart. The bumbling assistant ME who always said the wrong thing had really pulled through for all of them by filling in for Ducky so the good doctor could stay at Bethesda. There were different kinds of bravery and Jimmy Palmer had shown his over the past few days. Yeah, Gibbs would say something to him. His favor, rarely given, would hopefully convey thanks.

"What did Ducky want?"

"I don't know but he asked me to bring you back to ICU if I could get you to wake up."

Gibbs followed Abby out into the waiting room and down to ICU. When they got to Tony's room the oppressiveness of the room from before seemed to have lessened slightly, maybe it was due to the fact that one or two machines that had been monitoring Tony had disappeared and there was room to maneuver again.

"I got him, Ducky" she announced proudly as they walked in and all eyes were on him. That was happening a lot lately but Ducky was the one with something to say and not him and each gaze dropped from him one by one. Ziva was in the chair just inside the curtain. McGee was in the chair beside Tony's bed and Ducky was in the same place he was all those hours ago when Tony had tried to shake lose his moorings. He shuddered and fought back the memories.

"Tony's oxygen levels have continued to improve. We have decided," Gibbs liked the way Dr. Pitt and the ICU staff and Ducky had become a 'we', perhaps his ME's talents were being wasted in NCIS Autopsy, "that they have improved enough that we'll begin to lower Tony's sedation and begin weaning him off the vent. It's a long process, he's been on the supplemental oxygen for so long that it will likely take several tries to get him extubated. When the sedation is reduced, Anthony may regain consciousness. The process will be two-fold. On one hand it will get him off the ventilator and it will also help us asses if Tony has suffered any brain damage as a result of his injuries, cardiac arrest, and low oxygen levels."

Gibbs felt as though they'd arrived at a crossroads of some kind and one with signs for road contraction down whatever way you chose. The hard part was deciding which road to take and avoiding the one where the bridge was out. Gibbs had had just about enough of the unknown but he was facing it again. If Tony's brain had been damaged, if they couldn't have him back and things return to the way they were before, Gibbs didn't think he could handle it. But he had to handle it, for Tony's sake if nothing else. Regardless of what happened next, life would go on and no matter how hard he raged at it or shook his fists at the sky, there was no changing that fact. So, if Tony came back but was still gone, then Gibbs would be there with him every day after regardless of what happened. He sealed the promise inside his chest near his heart and pushed the panic back down.

McGee gave up his seat beside Tony to Abby and then left with Ziva and Ducky to give the two their turn alone with Tony. Gibbs collapsed into the now familiar chair just inside the curtain and watched his forensic tech position the chair to her liking, facing Tony, and listened as she started to talk, not caring that he was in the room. It was such an Abby thing to do.

"Ok, I know you probably heard all that but I'm going to tell you again so it sticks. Sister Sophia on my league is great at that, though being 90 years old might have something to do with it. So, they're going to take you off of the sedation meds soon and we need to have a little talk before they do that. First off, when you start to come out, you are going to wake up. There's no room for argument on that point. Secondly, I think I heard that Gibbs gave you an order and you're following that order still but we're making an addendum to that order and it's that you're going to wake up and you are not going to have any brain damage and they're going to take that tube from out of your throat and you're going to beat the odds and walk out of this hospital. Can you handle that DiNozzo?" Gibbs couldn't help but smile. Abby finished her rambling speech with a nod then reached into her purse and pulled out a book, apparently satisfied her words had been absorbed. From what Gibbs could tell it was a book about some sort of superspy on the run from those who'd created him. He let the soothing sounds of Abby's smooth reading wash over him and he felt something stir inside from the confidence Abby's speech had exuded into him.

It was something he hadn't felt in a very long time. It started out as a warmth at the bottom of him that quickly pushed itself up to fill the rest of him. The feeling was so foreign he was barely able to recognize it but finally his brain processed what he was felling and named it. It was hope. A feeling of hope his gut was no longer keeping under lock and key. It had been released from its prison somewhere inside and given free reign over his body at last. Gibbs welcomed it and let it wash over him feeling at last that, like Tony's improving oxygen levels and the temperature that now read 101.2, he was shifting again and returning to normalcy. There was no need to hold so much of the panic at bay because Tony was improving against all odds and there just wasn't that much panic left to hold back. He was releasing and there was movement again inside his chest and room to breathe and expand his lungs. If Tony kept this improving up, Gibbs wouldn't know what to do with his new toolbox from his epiphany but he was okay with that. Maybe the toolbox was something he was only going to need in times of crisis and it was okay to store and put away hopefully to never be used again. Whatever came next didn't matter, he had hope and it was powerful, powerful thing.

Gibbs took in a deep breath and Abby faltered in her reading to check to see if he was okay. He gave her a crooked half smile that she returned and went back to her reading.

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He didn't know how he'd managed it but Gibbs had fallen asleep again in his chair just inside the curtain. Abby had long since stopped reading and was working a piece of needlework Gibbs brain reminded him was cross-stitch. He looked up to see that it was Ducky's return that had woken him and the doctor was looking down at him with eyes filled with something other than sadness and fear. It was nice to see those things removed from his face.

"Anything new Duck?" A nurse had been in to reduce Tony's sedation about an hour ago and so far nothing had happened. Gibbs had fallen asleep sometime after the nurse left and Abby had abandoned her book. As if sensing his thoughts move to her, Abby set her project down and joined them.

"Blood work came back and radiology sent back the results on Anthony's latest chest x-rays. The antibiotics are working, his pneumonia is under control and is oxygen stats have come up to an almost acceptable level."

"Ducky! That's amazing!" Abby threw her arms around the ME who hugged her back with a smile on his face. Gibbs put a hand out and gave the doctor's shoulder a squeeze.

"What's the next step?" Gibbs asked when Ducky and Abby broke apart.

"Now we continue to focus on getting him off the vent."

"I should go tell McGee and Abby," Gibbs said, making to leave.

"Stay here Gibbs, I'll go. It's time to give someone else a turn anyway." She gave Gibbs a quick hug, her excitement soaking into his skin, and left. In the wake of her leaving Gibbs struggled with the questions he needed to ask to get the answers his brain still needed even though this heart had apparently accepted everything.

"Is he out of the woods, Duck?" Ducky studied him for a moment before answering.

"It's hard to say. As a doctor I want to tell you that there are any manner of things that could still go wrong. His infection could become resistant to the antibiotics and overwhelm him again, his kidneys might not rebound and he might need a transplant and that complicates things further. His heart could simply decide it's had too much and he could code again and the doctors might not be able to resuscitate him again." Gibbs took all of that in and felt his walls thicken minutely.

"However, as Anthony's friend I want to shout from the rooftops that his pneumonia is responding to the antibiotics, his fever has reduced and there is a good chance that he may open his eyes and look at me in a few hours time. So, Jethro, I'm going to say I think so, I think he's out of the woods, and we should all hope and pray that I'm right." Ducky nodded as if trying to drive his point home and Gibbs looked over to Tony's swollen form. It was hard to imagine the sick injured man lying in the bed would ever be back to full form, but Gibbs was going to take what Ducky said and run with it. If Tony opened his eyes in the next few hours Gibbs would get him through the rest.

"How long do we wait?"

"It's impossible to tell, Jethro. Every patient is different and Tony has so much else going on."

"Will he be in pain?"

"They will still keep him on pain medication. The tube down his throat will likely panic him but there are other medications they can use to help him stay calm. And your presence, as I am likely not to tear you away from his side any time soon, will likely be what he needs.

"So we wait?"

"We wait."

NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS

Another day passed slowly and nothing happened. If Tony was going to wake up, he was taking his sweet ass time doing it. The sedation had been reduced. They'd adjusted his ventilator to begin letting him control his own lungs and his oxygen levels, while still low, had reached the bottom of the normal levels. His fever was gone, the antibiotics fighting back his infection to a manageable level. Everything that could go right, had, so why was his agent stubbornly refusing to open his eyes?

Even thought Tony had yet to awaken, Gibbs felt better. He was freshly showered and changed and had managed to get a few more hours of sleep but only after every single one of his team had solemnly sworn to come and get him if anything changed for the worse. The same was true for when he went home to shower but no call had come and he was back in the IUC and alone with Tony once again.

The swollen look to his agent's body had receded slightly, his improving condition allowing some of his medicines to be reduced. Gibbs looked to Tony's face and wondered at what was going on his head. Tony had come so unbelievably far and now the only thing that stood between him and the road to recovery was the damn vent and his refusal to regain consciousness. What was it that kept him locked within himself? Pain? The painful recovery process he would face? Did he listen and absorb the conversation Gibbs had with Dr. Pitt a few hours ago about the renal failure and Tony's possible need for a transplant?

"People have transplants every day, Tony. If that's what you're worried about it, forget it." he said the words out loud and startled even himself. He'd been keeping most of his dialog internal for so long that his voice sounded almost dusty from disuse. He decided he wouldn't stop there.

"You've proved me wrong. You held on in spite of your damn heart giving out so why won't you open your eyes and wake up?" They'd run tests, Tony's brain function had appeared normal, but until he opened his eyes and gave Gibbs evidence he could see with his own eyes, Gibbs didn't trust the tests. And Tony's lack of progress was keeping the doubts in his head. With nothing else to do, he did the first thing that came to his mind

"DINOZZO!" He tried to put everything he could into the name. Every head slap, every barked order he'd ever given and he almost expected a nurse to come in and tell him to be quiet.

Gibbs studied Tony's face, praying that his word had permeated whatever layer Tony had buried himself under. Nothing. He fell back against the back of his chair in defeat. He put his hand through the bars of the rail to the bed and squeezed Tony's had just to let him know he wasn't really mad and did not expect the soft return of pressure he felt on his fingers. At first he almost missed it but his instincts came alive in that instance, honing every sense in his body to that one bit of pressure. He was out of the chair in a flash, the chair toppling sideways in his haste to face Tony and search his agent's face for signs of life.

Minutes passed and nothing happened then, ever so slowly, lashes moved against pale white skin and hazel eyes Gibbs never thought he would see again opened.


	23. Epilogue

"Did he do it? Did he find it?" Gibbs suppressed a laugh.

"Yes, just like you asked."

"I knew he'd do it. He's such a pushover. Abby probably got a kick out of it; did everyone else think it was dumb?"

"It was a nice gesture. Everyone thought so."

"You think I'm a big emotional sap, don't you?"

"Hardly." he heard a sigh in reply.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you guys."

"Well, it's not like you had much of a choice."

"Yeah, but stuff like that is important. I should have been there."

Gibbs stood in the airy, unfamiliar room and tried to rein in his exasperation at the conversation. It was easy to do with the sunlight streaming in from the large bank of windows warming him from head to toe. Yeah, this was much better.

"How do you like the new digs?" he asked.

"The new room? It's great! Just wish my nurses were hot." Gibbs turned from his place by the window to give Tony a look of mock offense at the grumble. His agent smiled sheepishly and then shifted uncomfortably in his hospital bed.

Five weeks had passed since Tony had taken his walk right up to the edge of death and contemplated jumping over but Gibbs tried not to let those dark memories settle in around him. The sun was shining outside and he felt lighter than he had in weeks especially after last night. He didn't want to taint the lightness he felt with terrifying memories of the past.

Abby had put together an impromptu memorial service for Tia and Michael Finch the night before and even he had to admit it had been a good idea. She'd gotten her hands on Private Finch's letter to Gibbs and before he knew it his frenzied forensic tech had decided to fulfill one of the Private's last requests and honor the memory of the fallen family. He suspected she really just needed to enact come control on a world that was only just starting to make sense again. The service had been cathartic and had closed the book on their involvement in the case. It was handed over to other agencies now to finish prosecuting the remaining Angel and Knights Templar members and the marines involved in the drug smuggling ring out of San Diego. The Major Case Response Team's involvement in the matter was over.

As much as he wished Tony had been able to share in the impromptu memorial service with the team, he was still far from 100% or being released from the hospital. The damage done to his insides had been catastrophic and he still sported casts and was stuck with a nasal cannula permanently installed on his face until his oxygen levels decided to stay where they were supposed to. His kidneys had rebounded so there was no need for a transplant but there had been a scary moment a week ago when one of his wounds started showing signs of being infected. Taking no chances, he was whisked away to surgery to have things cleaned out. He'd been okay after that one but he still had to endure the horrible daily torture of dressing changes for the wounds still open, a procedure that left Tony weak and shaking from the pain afterwards, and medicines that made him so sick some days he spent his whole day puking up his guts. It was far from over, but Tony was alive and Gibbs would get him through the rest of it.

The wounds Miguel Martinez had given him had gone deep and with Tony's body in the shape it had been, healing had been slow. He was so way in hell he would be able to attend the memorial service but he'd made up for it by having McGee put his Mighty Mouse stapler on Michael Finch's grave. It was a nice touch.

"They tell you anything new?" Gibbs asked. Tony's eyes immediately fell and he started to examine a spot on the sheet that covered his legs, picking at the spot absently.

"Tony?"

"Dr. Pitt was by. They still won't let me lose the oxygen but he said my lungs look clear on the x-rays."

"So why the long face?" Tony finally looked up at him with a pleading look in his eyes and Gibbs expected he was about to get the 'please talk them into letting me go home' speech Tony had started giving in the past few days. What the agent admitted next surprised him but only some.

"It's been five weeks and I just thought I would be further along than this." Gibbs understood the feeling. In the days following his own injuries from the bomb blast years ago that almost took him away from his team, Gibbs had cursed the slow progress his body was making at healing. His injuries were miniscule compared to DiNozzo's and they'd driven him nuts after only days.

"Think about what happened though. You don't lose your spleen, damage your liver, have your kidney's fail, and put pneumonia on top of the pile and expect to get up the next morning ready for work."

"I know." Gibbs could tell Tony was still uncomfortable talking about all that had happened. "It just really blows that I couldn't be there to help you guys bring in the last of the Angel gang members and hunting down the Knights Templar. I about punched McGee in the face the other day when he told me about that Colonel in San Diego who'd pulled a gun on him. I should be there backing them up... I don't know how McGee did it after he broke his leg."

"It's over now."

"I know that but what happens on the next case you guys get and I'm not there to help? I feel like Gary Sinise in Apollo 13 when he finds out he might get the measles and can't go on the mission with Lovell and the other guy. Then he as to sit in mission control completely helpless while his friends die in space!"

"You can't compare pneumonia to the measles, DiNozzo. And McGee and Ziva are hardly dying." Not like you were, he wanted to say but he didn't voice it.

"I know that, it's just frustrating."

"I told you I'd take care of them." A confused look crossed Tony's face at the statement but Gibbs just offered a half-smiled. He kept forgetting Tony had been unconscious for all their important conversations and he wondered if he would ever reveal to Tony all that was said.

Tony shifted uncomfortably in his bed again and his eyes flicked to the clock. There was a schedule to be followed at the hospital and in 15 minutes he was due for a dressing change. It was the one last gruesome remnant of what had been done to him. Most other signs were slowly healing over but this was the one that still pulled screams from his agent.

"It's not for forever," Gibbs said to him, treading his thoughts and the look he got told Gibbs that Tony understood.

"I know."

Tony's road to recovery was going to be long and winding with enough bumps along the way to make him want to throw in the towel at times, but Gibbs and Abby, McGee and Ziva, Ducky and Palmer would all be there to help Tony along the way. Everything that had happened over the past five weeks and forever and irrevocably changed them all but Gibbs believed only for the better. His team was stronger and closer than ever before and they would be able to conquer anything fate decide to throw at them next. They would get Tony healthy and back to work and as Gibbs stood in that airy, sun filled room he knew in his gut that everything was going to be okay.

The End

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_Author's note: Thank you all so much for your reviews and support to get this story written. I couldn't have done it without you. Some of the medical (like timing and such) in the last few chapters delineates from actual practices, but sometimes you just have to bend the rules for the sake of fiction. And this is a work of fiction, I don't own any of the characters in this story but man do I like to make them suffer. I hope you enjoyed._

_Some slight edits have been made to fix a mistake pointed out. Thanks for reviews!_


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